Imagine if LeBron James had come out of high school and followed the career path we’ve seen through, say, about season four, met with an untimely demise. A closer analogy to Steve Prefontaine might actually be Drazen Petrovic, since both young athletes were killed in car accidents. But where Petrovic remains a Croatian legend and one of the Nets’ all-timers, Pre was more like LeBron in the sense that he created a legacy of excellence early in life, had an impact well beyond his sport, and always wore the Nike Swoosh. That’s just a bit of historical context for the Nike Pre Montreal Racer, a model so classic that we can’t pretend like that explanation was just for the ‘young’ sneakerheads. This shoe was one of Nike’s first runners, a 1973 debut that showed Nike would stand behind Prefontaine’s push to capture that elusive 5000m gold at the ’76 games in Quebec. But Pre never made it to Montreal, but thanks to the internet, we have the ability to visit England for a chance at the Quickstrike that’s only available in the UK at Size?.
