Nike Commercial - Quincy Watt Blows a Shoe

Men's 400m Final from the 1993 IAAF Athletics World Championship. Michael Johnson wins the race over world record holder Butch Reynolds and Olympic champion Quincy Watts (4th). The race featured 3 Americans and 3 Kenyans in the final and was made memorable by Quincy Watts' shoe falling apart on the final turn into the homestretch. At that point, he was struggling to maintain contact with Reynolds and Samson Kitur (KEN), but his shoes did him no favors. This probably could have happened to any shoe company, but was not Nike's best day. Enjoy either way!! www.tandfunlimited.com/1993.html

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Quincy Watts
• michael johnson
• 400m world championships
• track and field
• iaaf
• athletics
• nike
• butch reynolds
• kenya
• sprints
• olympics

[AlanTheAthleticsFan]

This is an interesting talking point - I've watched this many times on TV and I believe the white thing flying away may well be his hip photofinish number rather than a part of his shoe - you can see something at around 2:42 on his shorts that comes loose a few seconds later. I reckon if it was a part of his shoe I think it would fall straight to the ground and not "flutter" like it did in the vid.

[athleticsdvds]

That would make sense. I always figured it was a piece of shoe, but never thought about his hip number. You are right in that it would be more likely to flutter through the air.  Watching the shoe in the homestretch is quite interesting. Although, he would have had a hard time challenging for the medals even with perfect shoes it was rather unfortunate. He always seemed like a very good person and someone that you could really root for.

[camtheman3x6]

turn 4? there is only 2 turns on a track

[SirNinjaLotBBQ]

@AlanTheAthleticsFan 3:15 you can see he's got one shoe off

he's on the upper left hand corner of the screen

[richardjw87]

You reckon Johnson would have beaten Watts in Barcelona 1992? Johnson PB at this point was slower than Watts' winning time in the final. Would he have raised his game? What a shame we will never know. Watts was awesome in 92

[theAzsportsman22]

I think Watts' shoe came apart within the first 100 meters of the race because it seems like he couldn't really accelerate down the backstretch!

[dovespin1]

It was definitely his hip number that came off his body. It fluttered through the air, and there was no real change in his stride when it came off. If it was a piece of the shoe, it would have thrown him or at least we would notice some change.

[MicahLeviClark]

I think his shoe was rigged to fail Nike favored Johnson over Watts

[sprintMW]

@athleticsdvds yea that mite be his hip number that always happends in my races lol if you look sometimes you find all kinds of numbers on the track an infield

[drewbrad0709]

funny! so funny!

[AlanTheAthleticsFan]

Just to add to previous comment, I have seen footage of Watts walking through the media mixed zone after the race holding the shoe where the sole has come completely away but still in one piece only attached to the toe part, whether the white object was something like a piece of lining is open to question but I think it is what I have already mentioned.