Mary Cain speaks-out against the Nike Oregon Project

Mary Cain recalled the abuse she suffered at the hands of Alberto Salazar, an American coach who trained her in Oregon on behalf of Nike. Ms Cain made an op-ed video which detailed her experience of ‘the dark side’ of professional running for female athletes.

I was physically and emotionally abused by a system designed by Alberto and endorsed by Nike. – Mary Cain

Mary Cain was once regarded as a child prodigy, she was a professional middle-distance runner born in New York, who represented the United States of America in track events. Ms Cain was a finalist for the 1500-meter women’s track event at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, at the age of 17 she became the youngest athlete to run in the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships. She also competed in the 3000-meter junior track event in 2014 and earned the title of World Junior Champion.
Ms Cain recently spoke out about Nike and the Nike Oregon Project’s (NOP) toxic culture, in a video which was published by The New York Times on Thursday 7 November 2019. Ms Cain said: “I was physically and emotionally abused by a system designed by Alberto and endorsed by Nike.”

In the video Ms Cain described how the staff at the NOP was “all male” and they were “convinced” that she “had to become thinner and thinner and thinner” to become an even better athlete. She then goes on to say that whenever she tried to get help for the physical and mental abuse she was suffering, she was told to simply “listen to Alberto”, who would “publicly shame” her weight. This had an adverse effect on both Mary Cain’s running and her body. She developed relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S syndrome), an illness due to which Ms Cain “broke five bones”, missed her period for years and started to self-harm.

Believe Mary. She is telling the truth. – Jonathan Marcus

Jonathan J Marcus, director at High Performance West in Oregon, has publicly supported Ms Cain by verifying that he once witnessed Ms Cain being “yelled at in public for gaining weight” during a meet that took place in 2015 as mentioned in Cain’s video. Mr Marcus then went on to say: “Believe Mary. She is telling the truth.”

The Nike Oregon Project (NOP) was an elite professional training program based in Portland made to promote American long-distance runners. The project, which began in 2011, was operated by Nike until it was shut down in October 2019, following the investigation that was conducted into Cain’s accusations. Alberto Salazar, now aged 61, was known as Nike’s star coach for track and field events in athletics, before an investigation conducted by the US Anti-Doping Agency resulted in coach Alberto Salazar being banned from his profession and the sport for four years.

Reports by other publications have confirmed that 9 former athletes, who were also members of the NOP, have spoken out about the abuse they suffered during their time at the NOP. Another runner who was coached by Alberto Salazar, Amy Yoder Begley, said she also experienced the toxic culture at NOP including instances of being fat shamed and being told to take prescription medication to lose weight, like Ms Cain.

Nike’s response has been accused of victim blaming

Nike released a statement in response to the charges, stating: “These are deeply troubling allegations which have not been raised by Mary or her parents before.” However, Nike’s response has been accused of ‘victim blaming’; their statement mostly focused on how Ms Cain wanted to “re-join the Oregon Project and Alberto’s team” in April 2019 and how it was her responsibility to mention her concerns at the time.

Although Nike have recently shut down the Oregon project, Ms Cain said: “Those reforms are mostly a direct result of the doping scandal. They’re not acknowledging the fact that there’s a systemic crisis in women’s sports and at Nike, in which young girls’ bodies are being ruined by an emotionally and physically abusive system”.