A student has designed a sprint shoe which he believes could give athletes a serious edge over their competitors.

Luc Fusaro, who is originally from France, made the prototype shoe for his graduation show at London's Royal College of Art.

The shoe, which weighs just 96 grams and is the lightest sprint footwear ever, is made from sintered nylon polyamide powder.

Fusaro used 3D printing in the manufacturing process and is so confident of the shoe's performance ability, he has named it "Designed to Win".

He said: "Tuning the mechanical properties of a sprint shoe to the physical properties of an athlete can improve their performance by up to 3.5 per cent and just to show the magnitude of such impact, 3.5 per cent represents 0.35 seconds at an elite level and in the last Olympic final, the eight finalists were all within 0.34 seconds."

Fusaro's shoe will not be ready in time for London 2012, but he has made another contribution to the Olympics, as he and some of his colleagues designed the official podium at which the athletes will be awarded their medals.