Nik MD

Forensics | Security | Tourist | tunajenga nchi viongozi ndio mchwa

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Nike spent ten years trying to break the 2-hour marathon. They named a project after it. They built special shoes. They paid the greatest marathoner alive to chase it. Yesterday, a Kenyan runner finally did it in 1:59:30, wearing Adidas.

Sabastian Sawe used to be a pacemaker. A pacemaker is the kind of runner you hire to set the speed for the first few miles of a race and then drop out before the finish. In January 2022, Sawe got booked to do exactly that at a half-marathon in Spain. He'd never raced more than three miles in his life. He stayed in for the full 13 and won the whole thing. Adidas signed him not long after. Four years later, he became the first human ever to run an official marathon under 2 hours.

Nike, meanwhile, started this whole project in 2016 with a public goal called "Breaking2." They paid for the shoes, the pacemakers, the science labs, and Eliud Kipchoge himself. Kipchoge ran 1:59:40 in Vienna in 2019, but the event was a closed-course exhibition with rotating pacemakers and a pace car projecting a green laser line onto the road. The sport's governing body never recognized it as a real race. It didn't count.

Then Nike's running business cratered. Digital sales fell 26% in one quarter. Their share of footwear sold at Dick's Sporting Goods went from 39% to 32% in five months. On Running grew from $330 million to $1.8 billion between 2020 and 2025. Hoka nearly quadrupled. Roger Federer left Nike for On. Nike's board fired the CEO in October 2024.

Adidas spent the same period building a better shoe. The new Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 took three years to develop. It weighs 97 grams, about 3.4 ounces, lighter than a deck of cards. A Wall Street Journal-cited study found that wearing a shoe 3.5 ounces lighter saves a runner around 57 seconds across a marathon. Sawe beat the third-place finisher by 58 seconds.

Adidas also did something Nike never did for Kipchoge. They wrote a $50,000 check to the official anti-doping body for track and field, asking it to test Sawe more aggressively than any other runner alive. He got tested 25 times in the two months before last year's Berlin Marathon, and Adidas signed up to fund this for the length of his contract. The logic: the moment Sawe ran a marathon this fast, the world was going to ask if he cheated, especially after his countrywoman Ruth Chepngetich got a 3-year doping ban in 2025. Adidas got out ahead of it.

The shoe retails at $500 and is barely available. Adidas's Adizero shoes won half of all major marathon races in 2024. Yesterday in London, four of the top five finishers wore the same Adidas shoe. Yomif Kejelcha crossed the line 11 seconds after Sawe and also broke 2 hours. The top three runners all beat the previous world record.

Nike's only response was an Instagram post. Three sentences long: "The clock has been reset. There is no finish line." That was their entire public reaction to losing a 10-year moonshot to their biggest rival.

[Nik MD @nm_mudaki]

@ItsChanzu @osoroKE @DonaldTrump eeeih 😂😂😂

[Miss Kawhi👑 @HKuriah]

Knock knock!
Who's there?
Superstar.
Superstar who?
Superstar Madina Mullah Okot.🇰🇪
Don't know her or you just heard her for the first time? Stay with me because we're about to change that.

In the year 2004, a village called Mumias in Kenya welcomed a bouncy baby girl. Madina Okot Mullah.
Before 2020, Okot still didn't know if she could throw a basketball because she was still playing volleyball at Bishop Sulumeti High school. Madina started playing basketball after switching schools from Bishop Sulumeti High school in Kakamega to Kaya Tiwi high school in Ukunda.
Standing 6 feet 6 inches, Madina had to be taught basketball from scratch. From dribbling, to the rules of the game and everything in between. This might be the best decision she has ever made in her life.

The rise of Okot started at the age of 17 where she was among the chosen to represent Kenya's 3×3 U23 team at the Commonwealth games. Her performance in this competition attracted many including Eastern Michigan University. Unfortunately, her visa got delayed and as a result delayed her the chance to play in the United States. However, Okot was recognised by her country and was deservedly named at the Kenyan Sports Personality of the year award as the most promising rising female athlete in the country.

As her Visa got worked out, Madina continued to put in the work at Zetech University for two seasons. She then signed for the Kenya Ports authority(KPA) team where she greatly helped them claim the Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) League title.
Her basketball journey suffered as another suspension, albeit short-lived, was issued in March 2021 due to a spike in COVID-19-positive cases. She took this as a blessing in disguise where she put in a lot of work behind the scenes as she needed to be able to compete at the highest level because unlike many players, she had started late.

In 2023, her journey continued on an upward trajectory as the same team finished second at the FIBA Africa Women's Basketball team which also was named as the team of the tournament. Have I mentioned that this is the same year where she was the ONLY African player to be included in the Women's Team roster at the Nike Hoop Summit? And did I mention that she was the Most Valuable Player(MVP) at the 3x3 Africa Cup competition, and won the Africa Cup in the same year?

In August 2024, her fifth visa was approved and she finally left Zetech University for Mississippi University in the USA.That year, Okot led Mississippi State to the second round of the NCAA tournament. She later joined the University of Southern Carolina for the 2024-25 season, a team that is a major prospect in producing top WNBA stars and under Coach Dawn Staley.

Today, Madina Okot AKA Big Mama, leads the NCAA in double doubles(13) averaging 15.1 points, 11.3 rebounds on 60.8% FG for the top-flight South Carolina Gamecocks.

She is one of the best players in the Women's NCAA Basketball. She's already a first round WNBA prospect, and will be the 3rd Kenyan after Josephine Achieng Owino and Olivia Nelson-Ododa, to be drafted to the WNBA, and definitely with the potential to become the most successful.

Haven't figured things out yet? Feeling like starting over?
Do it late, do it scared, but make sure you do it, just like Madina Okot.

[Nik MD @nm_mudaki]

@C_NyaKundiH I am wheezing 😂😂😂😂😂

[Nationalist @intelsomalia]

BREAKING: Massive data breach hits Somalia's e-visa system. Many already suspected it was a scam run by President Hassan Sheikh to pocket visa fees through his private company, and now the entire database is exposed.

Most alarming: dozens of passports belonging to Colombian military-aged men. This proves Puntland's President Said Deni and Hassan Sheikh are directly involved in helping the UAE move mercenaries and weapons through Somalia and Puntland to fuel the genocide in Sudan.

#Sudan #RSF #UAE #Somalia

[Karis @YaneKariuki]

Vijana wadogo mmejaza ukabila rohoni ata kuliko wazazi wenu

[Kwame Owino @IEAKwame]

Folks, in this brief, my colleague reconciled the stock and flow of kenya's Public debt for a decade starting in 2013 and found a discrepancy equivalent to 5% of GDP. 👇

https://t.co/QDy4lggFLB

[Nik MD @nm_mudaki]

@Teti_Sulu eeeih 😂😂😂😂😂 injekt

[#LandIsNotProperty Mwalimu Wandia @wmnjoya]

I cannot warn enough that the damage CBE/CBC will do to our children's psyche is going to be phenomenal. Parents, you have to wake up and listen. You have to stop looking at the what (content) of education, and think of the how your kids are developing. This isn't a joke.

[AMUGIRA @amugira]

Why are you competing with a pendulum?

[Nik MD @nm_mudaki]

@gitau_griffith bana @KenyaPower_Care showed me dust this morning. The token amount and other charges just don't add up. si hii ni broad best wizi

[Nik MD @nm_mudaki]

oya @KenyaPower_Care kuna mahali nimewaibia?
why is your mathematics not adding up for my recent token?

[Nik MD @nm_mudaki]

@Mamushkhaimuna refreshing tackle 😂😂

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Good for him!

[Nik MD @nm_mudaki]

@moneyacademyKE 😂😂😂 tukue serious tafadhali

[Olé @Olez]

When it comes to abductions there is nothing like hot takes or playing the devil's advocate. You are either for or against abductions. There is simply no in between

[Nik MD @nm_mudaki]

@mr_ratcher @weak_spell bora iko na tiles 😆

[Kwame Owino @IEAKwame]

Folks, Kenya is full of public sector professionals who are a bag of contradictions. How is it acceptable for a Judge who sat and gave a judgement that watered down Public Participation to try to command us to issue a hash tag about the IEBC.?