Vincent Luis wins the Ironman World Championship in Kona in Nike Apex

On his very first trip to Kona, Vincent Luis became Ironman world champion. On Saturday 10 October 2026, in Hawaii, he covered a 3.8 km swim, a 180 km bike and a marathon in 7:47:27, finishing 1 min 36 s ahead of Norway’s Gustav Iden. No Frenchman had ever won in Kona before. And on his feet, according to the specialist press, a pair you won’t find in shops before January 2027: the Nike Apex.

Vincent Luis’s race in Kona

For the first time since 2019, men and women raced on the same day on the historic Kailua-Kona course. In the women’s race, American Taylor Knibb won in 8:36:29.

• Swim (3.8 km). Luis came out of the water in 48:31, in a lead group of about twenty athletes.
• Bike (180 km). Denmark’s Magnus Ditlev led the race. Luis reached T2 in 6th place, about six minutes behind him and two seconds behind Kristian Blummenfelt. Gustav Iden and American Matthew Marquardt each served a three-minute drafting penalty.
• Marathon (42.2 km). At halfway, Luis and Blummenfelt passed Marquardt and France’s Gregory Barnaby. The decisive moment came at the mile 21 aid station, around km 34: Luis passed a struggling Ditlev and took a lead he never gave back. Iden closed to under a minute in the last ten kilometres, then faded.

Leg	Vincent Luis
Swim (3.8 km)	48:31
Bike (180 km)	4:15:42
Marathon (42.2 km)	2:38:36
Total, transitions included	7:47:27

Place	Athlete	Time	Gap
1	Vincent Luis (France)	7:47:27
2	Gustav Iden (Norway)	7:49:03	+1:36
3	Matthew Marquardt (United States)	7:49:59	+2:32
4	Gregory Barnaby (France)	7:51:02	+3:35
5	Pierre Le Corre (France)	7:53:29	+6:02

Three Frenchmen in the top five. Times were still unofficial the day after the race, and the splits differ by one second from one source to another.

From short course to the top of Ironman

Vincent Luis, 37, first ruled short-course triathlon: world champion in 2019 and 2020, and bronze medallist in the mixed relay at the Tokyo Olympics. He has only raced full distance since 2025, and his rise fits in three lines:

• Challenge Roth 2025, his first race over the distance: 4th in 7:38:54 (swim 46:30, bike 4:06:10, marathon 2:43:18).
• Ironman Texas 2026: 4th in 7:25:29 (swim 48:18, bike 3:58:10, marathon 2:34:52). The fastest time ever by a Frenchman over an Ironman, ahead of Denis Chevrot’s 7:26:20 in Hamburg in 2023. And his ticket to Kona.
• Kona 2026: world champion, in his third race over the distance.

Sam Laidlow had already brought France an Ironman world title, in 2023, but in Nice. Vincent Luis is the first Frenchman to win in Hawaii.

He had billed Kona as the last race of his career. At the finish, he was less sure: “Will I carry on after all? I don’t know… It’s a bit of a 50/50,” he told L’Équipe, adding that “nobody has ever ended their career after winning Kona” (our translation).

A closer look at Vincent Luis’s shoes

Vincent Luis is a Nike athlete: he had already won his 2019 world title in the Vaporfly Next%. In Kona, 220 Triathlon magazine reports that he wore a prototype pair of Nike Apex, and Front Pack Sports says the same. As we write, neither Nike nor the athlete has confirmed it publicly: we’ll update this article as soon as they do.

Nike unveiled the Apex on 30 September 2026, ten days before the race, and presents it as the top of its new road racing line, above the Alphafly 4. Here is what Nike says about it:

Feature	Nike Apex, according to Nike
Foam	ZoomX LT, a new race-specific foam
Air Zoom	four units in the forefoot, stacked in pairs
Plate	redesigned carbon fibre Flyplate
Stack height	40 mm at the heel and at the forefoot
Drop	0 mm
Upper	Flyknit X
Weight	more than 10 % lighter than the Alphafly 3 (men’s US 10)
Energy return	up to 40 % more than the Alphafly 3 (men’s US 10)
Availability	January 2027, on nike.com and at selected retailers
Price	not given in the announcement

The number that stands out is the drop. Nike’s other racing shoes have a 6 to 8 mm drop (6 mm for the Vaporfly 4, 8 mm for the Alphafly 4): the Apex is flat, 40 mm under the heel and under the toes, the most World Athletics allows on the road. The 40 % energy return is Nike’s own measurement, not an independent test. And a race isn’t a lab: in Kona, Vincent Luis’s legs did the winning first.

The Apex doesn’t have a page on Runometry yet: no price and no exact date so far. If you want the closest technology today, look at the Alphafly 4, which already pairs ZoomX LT foam with Air Zoom units.

Why a road marathon shoe in an Ironman?

An Ironman marathon is nothing like a fresh marathon. It starts after a 3.8 km swim and 180 km on the bike, and in Kona it’s run in heat and humidity, with the wind on the Queen K Highway and the stretch through the Energy Lab. The legs are already tired: athletes want a shoe that cushions a lot, weighs little and keeps the stride efficient to the end.

That is exactly the brief of carbon-plated marathon shoes. Their most quoted benefit, an average 4 % saving in the energy cost of running, was measured in the lab at 14 to 18 km/h (Hoogkamer et al., 2018). Vincent Luis ran his Kona marathon in 2:38:36, about 16 km/h on average, or 3:45 per kilometre: right in that range. For most runners, the effect is smaller at slower paces. It’s all explained in our guide to carbon-plated shoes.

Want to race in Nike right now?

The Apex will have to wait until 2027. Meanwhile, here is what you can already compare on Runometry:

• Nike Vaporfly 4: 190 g (men’s US 10), 6 mm drop, ZoomX foam and a carbon plate. Its page also lists retailer prices when we find them.
• Vaporfly 4 or Vaporfly 3?: the two generations side by side, number by number.
• Nike Alphafly 4: the closest to the Apex, with its foam and Air Zoom units.
• The whole shelf: racing shoes, marathon running shoes, and the comparison tool to put two pairs side by side.

Sources

• Results and times (unofficial): NBC Sports, 11 October 2026.
• Splits for Kona, Roth and Texas: stats.protriathletes.org.
• Race story and penalties: Slowtwitch.
• Vincent Luis’s words: L’Équipe, reported by Orange Sports, 11 October 2026.
• Shoes worn in Kona: 220 Triathlon and Front Pack Sports, 10 October 2026.
• Nike Apex specs: Nike announcement, 30 September 2026.
• French record in Texas: FFLose.
• Challenge Roth 2025: Tri247.
• Record and date of birth: Wikipedia.
• Running economy: Hoogkamer et al., “A Comparison of the Energetic Cost of Running in Marathon Racing Shoes”, Sports Medicine, 2018.