Sprinter Sues Puma Over ‘Defective’ Shoes She Says Ruined Her Career

A world champion sprinter is suing Puma and the Mercedes F1 team, claiming that their spikes and shoes were poorly designed and caused her career-ending injuries.

Abby Steiner, a four-time NCAA champion and two-time world champion, claims in the suit that the trainers and spikes from Puma and Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix were “defective” and “unsafe.” 

Steiner, now 26, last competed at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2024. She signed a deal with Puma in July 2022, which was widely rumored to be for $2 million—an enormous sum for a women’s sprinter coming out of the college ranks. Though she was on the U.S. teams that swept the 4×100 and 4×400 at that summer’s World Championships, she began sustaining foot injuries starting in 2023, undergoing at least three procedures from then to 2025.

During the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials, Steiner had to pull out of several tune-up competitions because she couldn’t get through walking or jogging drills in training. She finished sixth in the 200-meter dash at the trials, well short of the Olympic team. 

In August 2025, Steiner announced she was “taking a step back from running” to pursue a master’s degree in exercise science and give herself more time to get healthy.

In the new lawsuit, Steiner claims Puma’s shoes increased the risk of injuries through their design and use of carbon fiber plate and nitro foam technology. For the last decade, major running companies have been in an arms race to develop the fastest carbon-plated shoes and spikes as new shoe technology has revolutionized the sport.

Steiner says she can no longer run competitively at the professional and Olympic levels due to Puma’s products. Specifically, the Puma Deviate Nitro Elite 2 and 3, as well as the evoSPEED Tokyo Nitro shoes were listed as shoes that injured her.

As a result, Steiner is seeking financial and nonfinancial compensation from Puma, with damages including medical expenses, losses of potential earnings from her running career, and “the loss of full enjoyment of life and disfigurement.”

The lawsuit—filed April 24 in Massachusetts Superior Court—says Puma knew that their products were defective, and yet promoted them as safe to wear and did not inspect them.

Though Steiner first sustained foot injuries years before suing Puma, she says she “only recently” discovered Puma shoes were to blame for them through their technology—which “changed the foot and ankle mechanics during running” that could increase injury risk and cause strain on runners’ feet. 

“Plaintiff did not know, nor could or should she have reasonably known, that she had been harmed or may have been harmed by Defendants’ conducts,” the lawsuit says.

The Mercedes F1 team told FOS it had “nothing to comment re ongoing legal proceedings.”

Puma and lawyers for Steiner did not immediately respond to requests for comment.