The ban of the Puma Brush spike and subsequent 200 meter world record being disallowed, caused the engineers, technicians, cobblers, and designers at Puma to put their heads together to develop a new shoe. Enlisting the chemists at BASF to find another high tech solution, a lighter polymer based “spike” plate was developed. It featured more than a dozen toothlike “claws,” oriented to grip synthetic tracks, while shaving the weight of the plate, receptacle, and metal spike, significantly. The suede upper was light and felt great, and John Akii Bua’s impressive 400 meter hurdle gold medal performance highlighted the effectiveness of the Claw.