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Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel examines the barefoot running movement; When the Emmy®-winning shoe returns May 18, exclusively on HBO.

REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL presents more enterprising features and reporting when its 158th edition, available in HDTV, debuts TUESDAY, MAY 18 (10:00 p.m. ET/PT & 9:00 p.m. CT), exclusively on HBO.

Segments include:

*Sole Runners. For decades, new models of running shoes have boasted ever-greater amounts of padding, cushioning, support systems, high-tech gel and air pockets, and fatter, wider, thicker soles. Runners welcomed the ever-more-complicated and ever-more-expensive new models with open arms, happy to spend up to several hundred dollars a pair. So why is the biggest movement in running suddenly all about less cushioning, or even running barefoot, with no padding at all? Some maintain there has never been any evidence that more and more padding prevents, or even reduces, the number of running injuries. And a group of runners who insist that the less padding the better — that the human foot is designed to run most effectively with direct contact to the ground is gaining more and more followers. Correspondent Bernard Goldberg explores this hot-button topic and looks for answers to why less is more. Producer: Chapman Downes.