Explosive New York Times article: Mary Cain breaks silence about NOP

WHSHawk wrote:

douglas burke wrote:

Apparently they Took Away Salazar's School Records at his High School after he was suspended, I know he ran under 9 Minutes for 2 Miles, but it does not show up.

I suspect this database does not include the 1970's. I looked at my old high school and the records shown are also slower than some times I know were run in the 1970s.

Probably due to the switch to the metric system. Though for 2 miles vs 3200 meters, they should just do some time conversion BS.

This whole thing is fascinating in such a weird way. It highlights challenges with the system, problems with poor coaching, problems with youth sports success, problems with parenting and more.

I am very glad thar MC removed herself from the toxic environment and is hopefully ok.

First, for gods sake, can some adult in the room (nike, parents,coaches) please recognize that even a very intelligent person like MC is still not mature enough to deal with the enormous pressures of the adult world. I believe she was abused but at her age she/nearly all are just not prepared for the adult world. There is no rush to be an adult. It will happen on its own

Someone pointed out that NOP is pseudo science. I agree. And unfortunately the pseudo scientists like salazar used his athletes like lab rats. The pseudo science practiced by NOP is at he minimum a violation of true scientific ethnics and even possibly criminal.

The coaching problem is that salazar, in this case, and many other coaches have never received comprehensive education/training/certification in such important areas like developmental psychology, developmental anatomy and physiology.

Not really though wrote:

Win at all costs because the coach wanted her to lose weight? Imagine a coach at the highest level of the sport not being able to tell his athlete she’s too heavy. That’s where track has reached. And people wonder why Track is dying and not taken seriously. This isn’t high school or college, this is professional sports. Did she really think she could sign a professional contract and then gain weight and underperform and nobody would say anything?

She literally explains Sal tried to put her on diuretics to lose weight - which is against WADA code. This is not about someone not dieting or something, NOP was trying to medically induce weight loss at all costs to the detriment of women’s bodies.

For anyone that has coached, at least at the HS level, you've probably seen a plethora of eating disorders. I've sadly witnessed college athletes take it upon themselves to loose weight in trying to drop times. And it can work...for a time, but there are consequences and warning signs that signal decline (mentally, emotionally, physically). However, a positive support system i.e. parents, coaches, teammates, sports psych. can go a long way. In this case its great to see that Mary was able to regain control over her life and kudos to those that helped. The win at all costs attitude usually looses in the end.

This x 1000 ^^^^^

Frodo's Gardener wrote:

Predictable response from a liberal NYer latching onto pop culture men-bashing, who never had much talent after she left HS, trying to look strong and relevant among her liberal friends and followers.

I hope this is a joke, because if not you're truly a sad, miserable person. Mary Cain was an enormous talent who was still in HS when she joined NOP. If I was in her shoes I would have done the same thing, and wouldn't have had any idea of what rabbit hole I was jumping down. I'm very happy to hear her share her story so that other HS phenoms can avoid a similar fate.

I'm really upset that Mary had to go through all of this. We both were section 1 runners and both class of 2014, and I remember asking her how NOP was, and she talked a little bit about how her sisters would steal her NOP gear. She then changed the subject to the AP exams we had both taken. I figured she just didn't want to give away any top-secret NOP training secrets, but I'm not realizing that may have been a traumatic thing for her at the time. Damn.

Thanks for speaking up, Mary Cain! Very brave, and impactful. It's hard to imagine that this expose won't directly result in Nike having to hire female coaches and start paying attention to the unethical weight control medications that coaches are peddling to girls . . . and boys, men and women.

The posters who continue to discredit anyone who speaks out against NOP sound increasingly deluded. No other training group in the country has their own former athletes and coaches accusing them of misconduct, but there must be a dozen who are on the record now providing damning evidence against Nike and Salazar. So glad he's out of coaching. He's been creating misery in his wake since he was a college student intimidating the young Jeff Nelson.

Woahisme wrote:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/opinion/nike-running-mary-cain.html

Mainly concerns the win-at-all costs approach at NOP that lead to weight loss, injuries and suicidal thoughts.

Discus

How the EFF did older athletes like Rowbury or treniere not speak up? That in and of itself is disgusting. Shame on you!

Not really though wrote:

Win at all costs because the coach wanted her to lose weight? Imagine a coach at the highest level of the sport not being able to tell his athlete she’s too heavy. That’s where track has reached. And people wonder why Track is dying and not taken seriously. This isn’t high school or college, this is professional sports. Did she really think she could sign a professional contract and then gain weight and underperform and nobody would say anything?

Well she did try to lose weight for quite awhile and look what happened-she underperformed. Seems like coaching strategy was wrong.

Let's be real, Al Sal throws to the wall and watches what sticks. Mary is a dedicated athlete who put in the miles and was already skinny simply from training. Extreme portion control and diet drugs are not the way. This was callous mismanagement.

Woahisme wrote:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/opinion/nike-running-mary-cain.html

Mainly concerns the win-at-all costs approach at NOP that lead to weight loss, injuries and suicidal thoughts.

Discus

I'm not buying it. Sounds like a privileged white girl who has had all the advantages in the world, and when things didn't go her way (injuries, burnout, etc) she blames coaches and Nike. Running is hard, to get to the top level you must go through difficult training and often injuries are often part of that. I know Alberto, and while he is definitely eccentric, he would never tell an athlete to starve themselves, quite the opposite. Mary Cain was injured because she had some of the worst form ever for an elite distance runner and compounded with lots of training, she had stress fractures. Simple, doesn't mean that Alberto is responsible for that. All athletes get injuries. Also, the part about Nike not having sports psych or dietitians, outright lie. They have them there for their athletes. Did Trenier, Hassan, Hassay or Shannon look emaciated like many of the distance runners at top collegiate programs? Absolutely not! Did Mary Cain ever look lean or thin? NO!, so she probably did need to lean out a bit to become a better runner. It's not weight shaming, it's science.

Mary Cain comes across as an entitled millennial.

Watched the video and I thought she came off really well.

A few points that I found interesting:

1. Did Alberto actually ever PUBLICLY shame Mary's weight? Maybe he did it inside the team, but I don't recall ever seeing (hearing/reading) this actually said.

2. She is 100% correct in saying that the power Nike has in the sport is absurd. How does this change? No idea.

3. If the part about her cutting herself and how here teammates and even coaches knew is true...wow, just wow. That is just disgusting on all levels.

Thank you for mansplaining that. You obviously think women also should just stay in the kitchen.

You're way off base pal. Do you have a daughter? Do you understand what happens physically when young ladies don't have their periods? What she said in the video is spot on and having 5 bone fractures proves it. She didn't have these problems in high school, only after working with Alberto did problems arise. Do your homework. I'm glad she made this video and I hope young female athletes take note. Yes, running is hard, that is true. But the approach to get there has to be a smart one and the injuries that she had were totally avoidable. But...you can argue otherwise.

This "explosive" story feels like a whole lot of whining and complaining and not a lot of substance.

Plenty of women starve themselves and cut themselves, even when they're not coached by Nike.... Plenty of non-athletes do it too. I'm not outraged because Salazar yelled at her and weighed her in front of her teammates. I really don't give a sh*t.

That's it?

Lots of regular people survive much, much worse sh*t on a daily basis. And we don't go whining about it to the NYTimes.

Decent argument, but you were dodging the point we illustrated -

NOP/Salazar are doing ANYTHING legitimate to enhance performance and get their runners to the top - optimizing weight is one part of it (they might and probably do also do more than legitimate things, but that's irrelevant for this discussion).

They did it with Hassan - she lost a LOT of weight since joining NOP, which was a huge part in dropping times and becoming the best in the world - it worked!

They keep Koko at the same low, unhealthy(?) weight with a ridiculous 15.x BMI. She keeps getting better and better, broke several German records in solo TT races without pacers, medaled in Doha and is a strong canditate for an Olympic medal in Tokyo - it works/worked!

They did exactly the same with Cain, who in terms of age might have been a slightly bit younger, but in terms of body development was just as mature as the other runners. It did NOT work, she got injured, frustrated, burned out, and started to hate running.

This is not any different than the average HS/college coach throwing super hard intensity/high mileage program on their top 20 runners, and hoping that 5-7 of them survive and run top times in HS/college. They don't care about the athlete or what happens later, they just want to have optimal performance whenever it matters the most for them.

What may have changed from the days of Mary Cain is that NOP/Salazar/Nike medical found away to keep (most of) their runners at an extremely low weight/BMI that would definitely get injured 95% of female runners and stay healthy. Cain was just another test subject for Salazar (not intended to be, but he learned from the experience with her and might have tried different methods/drugs with his newer runners to lose/keep weight low).

To get any Olympic/wc medal your going to have to enter the territory of unhealthy. Bekele was eating only 2k calories a day when getting back in shape for the marathon. With women it's even riskier and you have to account for this in diet/training.

It's disgusting that Salazar would treat a growing girl like this. She was already on track for a fantastic career as the runner she was and five broken bones and no period for three years tells you all you need to know about how his treatment of her stalled her career and life. Very sad. Think about it: she ran 1:59.5/4:04/15:45 (jogging) at 17. Her speed was always a big part of that. She came into it with 55 speed and Salazar wouldn't accept who she was, a great racer who ran workouts at an easier pace. You can also look at that workout video, best workout of your life, with Hasay and Salazar and Cain, where she was asked, after winning a huge race, US champs, I think, to then do the rest of Hasay's 4M tempo (which she'd never done) and a cutdown.

- Salazar's regimen was a poor fit for Cain. But Salazar's regimen works well for other women.

- In the future, Nike needs to factor PR catastrophes into the risk they take when selecting their training methods. The flops airing their grievances (1) hurt Nike's brand and (2) hurt Nike's recruitment of other star athletes.

Would you send your daughter or son there to be coached by Alberto? Me, no, and I held that believe before the ProPublica story broke. Now, would any parent????