Sky Sports presenter Emma Paton has revealed the unlikely inspiration behind her new signature darts: a pair of Nike running shoes worn by marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge. The darts, launched in July 2026 in collaboration with Winmau, draw their design from the Pegasus 35 Turbo, a shoe made for Kipchoge as an everyday runner replica of his racing shoe.
Speaking to She's Got Game, Paton explained the creative process. "Funny story, the inspiration for these darts are from a Nike running shoe," she said. "Players already have a base because they know their colour scheme and even their character. Even their nickname, it all feeds into their darts. Whereas I was really starting from scratch."
Paton, a former 400m runner in her university days, struggled to find a starting point before turning to her favourite trainers. "I was trying to think, where do I start from here? So, I thought about my favourite running trainers. The feeling of when it is a Sunday morning and you have a nice, long run ahead of you. You are putting on your new trainers for the first time. So, loosely, this is based off Pegasus 35 Turbo from 2018," she stated.
The Kenyan runner, who won Olympic gold twice and held the world marathon record from 2018 to 2023, also became the first person to run a marathon in under two hours at the unofficial INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Vienna in 2019. Paton described how the shoe's design translated to her darts: "It was a shoe made for Eliud Kipchoge which was more like an everyday runner but a replica of his racing shoe. You will be looking at it and be like, it doesn't really look like the dart because it has a grey colour, but it has got this pop of hot punch."
She added: "So, you have a racing stripe down the middle. The tick is that colour. The aim for me was to have something that was sleek with this pop of colour. The midsole is like two different types of foam. So, the darts is two pieces. So, that is where it came from. It is random." Despite her stylish new arrows, Paton joked about her own ability on the oche: "Oh God, [my average] is so bad. Do you know what it is? The finishing that really just, it's awful."
