When Mary Cain stepped onto the monitor as a excessive schooler, it was clear that she was a once-in-a-generation sort of expertise. Her rise was fast and spectacular — which made it all of the extra gorgeous that only a few years after going professional with Nike, she stepped down from aggressive working.
Mary joins host Anita Rao to speak concerning the bodily and emotional abuse she says she skilled behind the scenes and the systemic change she is looking for in sports activities tradition.
Mary Cain is the writer of “This is Not About Running: A Memoir” and the founding father of the nonprofit Atalanta NYC.
NOTE: We reached out to Nike, Alberto Salazar and Darren Treasure for remark. Here is Nike’s assertion:
Nike has lengthy taken delight in supporting athletes in any respect ranges of sport and prioritizing their properly‑being and stays dedicated to advancing girls’s sport.
We respect Mary Cain’s proper to share her private perspective. While we’ve got not reviewed her guide or heard the podcast dialog in full, we anticipate her feedback relate to occasions from 2012 to 2016; she joined the Oregon Project in 2013.
Nike is conscious that her account raises issues about teaching practices, athlete help, and the involvement of medical and efficiency assets throughout that interval. Based on Nike’s assessment of public data and obtainable data from that point, the corporate didn’t discover that these issues have been raised or reported to Nike on the time.
Since that point, Alberto Salazar is not related to Nike, the Oregon Project was discontinued in 2019, and associated litigation involving Nike was resolved in 2023 on mutually acceptable phrases.
Here is Alberto Salazar’s assertion:
It is drastically disappointing that Mary Cain has chosen to mischaracterize her time working with me and the Nike Oregon Project. During Ms. Cain’s brief time coaching with me in Oregon, a interval of roughly 9 months, she confronted many challenges associated to her effort to maneuver from being a highschool athlete to being knowledgeable athlete. During this time, it was at all times my purpose to help Ms. Cain and to assist her succeed. The Nike Oregon Project was knowledgeable working workforce, consisting of extremely devoted, extremely compensated athletes striving to be essentially the most elite runners to compete on the worldwide stage. It was a rigorous coaching surroundings but additionally a supportive one, directed at guaranteeing the well being and security of its athletes. The Nike Oregon Project had a community of certified coaches, docs, trainers, and different athlete help professionals supporting its runners. Many athletes thrived in that rigorous surroundings, successful on the worldwide stage. I’m sorry that this program was not a superb match for Ms. Cain. However, her mischaracterization of the surroundings as “toxic” and “abusive” is unlucky and inaccurate.
Ms. Cain’s different accusations are equally false and disappointing. I didn’t converse to her inappropriately, yell at her in public (or in personal), or make disparaging feedback about her weight. Nor did I try to alienate her from her dad and mom throughout her brief time coaching with me in Oregon. To the opposite, Ms. Cain’s dad and mom have been intently concerned in her coaching and profession, and so they finally performed a major position in her resolution to withdraw from the Nike Oregon Project. This was a call that I supported and inspired, as a result of I acknowledged that it was finest for her psychological and emotional wellbeing. Indeed, years later, when she tried to have me coach her once more, I refused to take action. During the time I coached her, I at all times welcomed Mr. and Mrs. Cain’s involvement, spoke to them typically, and supported Ms. Cain’s frequent visits with them. I don’t imagine {that a} single month glided by with out Ms. Cain visiting together with her dad and mom. Ms. Cain’s father, a health care provider, was additionally intently concerned in choosing the docs who supplied medical care and recommendation to Ms. Cain, and her accusations that I pressured her to obtain medical care from unqualified docs are fully false. Lastly, the imprecise allegation that I “groomed” Ms. Cain is inaccurate, deceptive, and unsubstantiated by any proof.
I’m sincerely sorry that Ms. Cain’s working profession was derailed by accidents, plenty of which she sustained after withdrawing from the Nike Oregon Project and as soon as I used to be not teaching her. And I’m even sorrier that she remembers her time with the Nike Oregon Project with such unhappiness. While it saddens me that she has chosen to vilify me and to mischaracterize my actions and intentions on this means, I want her solely the perfect.
We didn’t hear again from Darren Treasure.