Agreed.
This is pure, 100% conjecture, but I would not be surprised if someone(s) at Nike said to Tara, "Hey, come out and say something that [overall] positively reflects on Nike, NOP, and Alberto. It would be a shame for your husband to lose his job."
Again, speculation- but wouldn't be surprised if this was the situation which led to her article. Or it could be, that was her true experience. Either one.
LRC reached out to Tara for her story idiot.
"Two weeks ago, high performance coach/elite meet director Jonathan Marcus reached out to LetsRun.com to share his experiences with Alberto Salazar and the Nike Oregon Project. During the process of fact-checking that story, we contacted Tara Welling, who ran for the Oregon Project from 2012-14 (and later Marcus), who said she preferred to tell her story in her own words."
The good part is , when Tara texted her boyfriend , she blocked her phone because Mary C was trying to read the text.
Been in the game a while wrote:
One of the themes we are seeing and getting a pretty clear picture of is that a Alberto is a very detail oriented control freak, especially not well suited for coaching women. It is so bizarre to see a man so well versed on some aspects of training so misinformed and stuck in the past on other aspects (such as exact arbitrary weight goals).
He and Nike openly was recruiting for a women’s head coach for the NOP for several years as he realized he was not as good with women athletes. But he/Nike were never able to hire one. I think it would have been much better for Kara, Tara, Mary, Amy if they had.
Maybe Shalene becomes that over at Bowerman Track Club.
Ya , but Kara accused Shalane of using "illegal " shoes for the 2016 trials. So you can't win.
Because when the article came out, and the ensuing aftermath, no one at Nike ever thought, "Hey, if they ask Tara for her perspective, lets make sure she is good to go with what she says. Her husband does work for us after all....."
And she's probably covered by Nike for health insurance, at the very least.
How many times can you spin this fool?
Rojo and Wejo need to stop these baseless attacks. Everyone knows weight is an important factor. Nobody complained when everyone called Zion Williamson too fat (and they were right, he got injured). Nobody complains when a coach tells a thrower they need to gain weight to throw farther.
If a distance runner is overweight, what should Alberto have done? Say nothing and let that runner underachieve?
These stories claiming Alberto wants everyone to be anorexic are BS.
+1
Are you kidding, the LRC crew are actively reaching out to people like Tara to keep the drama going so they get more clicks. For example, the LRC staff takes Tara's response out of context and falsely represents her experience by leaving out critical facts in their summary. They are like giggling kids who have fun poking animals at the zoo as they sit back and laugh at the sheep reacting with outrage on this site.
From Tara's own response:
"I do wish things would have been different. I wish I sought more advice apart from the doctors and therapists that Alberto had available. At the time, I felt like I didn’t have a choice and I had to prove to him that I was getting healthy and gaining weight. I didn’t feel like I had much of a say and it was a “do-as-you’re-told” type of culture. But at the time, I felt that Alberto had my best interests as an athlete in mind, and I had no reason not to trust him."
Would it have been responsible for Salazer to do anything different in this situation? I don't even understand where Tara is coming from when she says she felt bad that she didn't have a choice but to prove to Salazar that she was healthy enough to race. This sounds to me like a very ethical coach. Sad that Tara has presented a rather confused reaction to Salazar's attempt to keep her in a healthy but competitive weight range.
She readily admitted she had eating disorders much of her life including before and after Salazar. She then goes on to suggest some other coach seemed to understand her training needs better, but doesn't explain what that meant and I assume he would also keep her in a healthy but competitive weight range assuming she wanted to continue as a professional runner or did this coach just give up on her understanding she would soon want a family.
stop with double standard wrote:
Rojo and Wejo need to stop these baseless attacks. Everyone knows weight is an important factor. Nobody complained when everyone called Zion Williamson too fat (and they were right, he got injured). Nobody complains when a coach tells a thrower they need to gain weight to throw farther.
If a distance runner is overweight, what should Alberto have done? Say nothing and let that runner underachieve?
These stories claiming Alberto wants everyone to be anorexic are BS.
Baseless attack? Did you read her story?
She said Alberto wanted her to increase weight when he first started coaching her because she was too thin.
I thought her story showed nuance. If people want to walk away from this whole thing thinking Alberto is a monster and the cause of all eating disorders they are missing the big picture.
And as for people saying the summary is too negative, I just read it and I assumed people would think it is too positive. I’m reading summary on homepage. I have no idea if it changed but it reads
‘Tara Welling Shares Her Experiences Regarding Weight as a Member of the Nike Oregon Project’
Welling says she had both positive and negative experiences with Alberto Salazar and reveals he wouldn’t let her race at times unless she gained weight. “At the time, I felt that Alberto had my best interests as an athlete in mind and I had no reason not to trust him. It was confusing and I found it mentally difficult when I had to lose weight and look like other runners when I was not them. It was a constant comparison battle.”
The bottom line here is Tara didn't have a negative experience with Alberto and NOP. Her story confirms Alberto wanted her to be a healthy weight and Alberto provided access to licensed health professionals.
Tara is incredibly brave to write this as female cyberbullies like Kara Goucher are riding hard on the anti Nike and anti Alberto train doing everything she can to insult Nike and insult Alberto every chance she gets.
wejo wrote:
stop with double standard wrote:
Rojo and Wejo need to stop these baseless attacks. Everyone knows weight is an important factor. Nobody complained when everyone called Zion Williamson too fat (and they were right, he got injured). Nobody complains when a coach tells a thrower they need to gain weight to throw farther.
If a distance runner is overweight, what should Alberto have done? Say nothing and let that runner underachieve?
These stories claiming Alberto wants everyone to be anorexic are BS.
Baseless attack? Did you read her story?
She said Alberto wanted her to increase weight when he first started coaching her because she was too thin.
I thought her story showed nuance. If people want to walk away from this whole thing thinking Alberto is a monster and the cause of all eating disorders they are missing the big picture.
And as for people saying the summary is too negative, I just read it and I assumed people would think it is too positive. I’m reading summary on homepage. I have no idea if it changed but it reads
‘Tara Welling Shares Her Experiences Regarding Weight as a Member of the Nike Oregon Project’
Welling says she had both positive and negative experiences with Alberto Salazar and reveals he wouldn’t let her race at times unless she gained weight. “At the time, I felt that Alberto had my best interests as an athlete in mind and I had no reason not to trust him. It was confusing and I found it mentally difficult when I had to lose weight and look like other runners when I was not them. It was a constant comparison battle.”
Wejo, the story is fine and presents both sides of the story. The quote of the day is even fine if you read the whole thing. I think the issue is with the way the quote starts - it leads in with a quote about Salazar that feels very negative on its own. I know that was my impression when I first started reading the article. In today's "read two lines, if that" day and age of news consumption, I can see where it went astray.
I know you are basically not really involved in this site, but people are referencing the original LRC/Gault posting and summary. I'm glad you guys have finally been shamed into publishing a more objective summary on your front page. Congratulations for finally doing your job, but we know that your/Rojo/LRC/Gault initial intent was (subconsciously or purposely) to create a false narrative to promote unmerited animosity and create clicks. Don't be disingenuous (which means pretending you don't know the actual facts).
wejo wrote:
stop with double standard wrote:
Rojo and Wejo need to stop these baseless attacks. Everyone knows weight is an important factor. Nobody complained when everyone called Zion Williamson too fat (and they were right, he got injured). Nobody complains when a coach tells a thrower they need to gain weight to throw farther.
If a distance runner is overweight, what should Alberto have done? Say nothing and let that runner underachieve?
These stories claiming Alberto wants everyone to be anorexic are BS.
Baseless attack? Did you read her story?
She said Alberto wanted her to increase weight when he first started coaching her because she was too thin.
I thought her story showed nuance. If people want to walk away from this whole thing thinking Alberto is a monster and the cause of all eating disorders they are missing the big picture.
And as for people saying the summary is too negative, I just read it and I assumed people would think it is too positive. I’m reading summary on homepage. I have no idea if it changed but it reads
‘Tara Welling Shares Her Experiences Regarding Weight as a Member of the Nike Oregon Project’
Welling says she had both positive and negative experiences with Alberto Salazar and reveals he wouldn’t let her race at times unless she gained weight. “At the time, I felt that Alberto had my best interests as an athlete in mind and I had no reason not to trust him. It was confusing and I found it mentally difficult when I had to lose weight and look like other runners when I was not them. It was a constant comparison battle.”
There is no "big picture" here. What this is turning into is vilification of coaches. There is no easy way to tell a slightly overweight athlete to lose weight. But this is professional athletics here, not some fat lady on the cover of some dumb magazine. Coaches have an obligation to the athlete to help them attain peak performance.
If a professional athlete can't understand it's important to optimize their weight for max performance, then that individual should not be on contract. What you have done is created a stream of washed up women whining about everything. You want the clicks, the women want to be relevant for 5 minutes again. But the sport suffers as a result of this fake narrative.
The original LRC summary was that Tara lost significant weight as soon as she joined NOP which implied that Salazar was responsible, but failed to report that she claimed this lost weight was due to her stress over her mother's illness and fear of being away from her mother in the first few months of joining NOP. This omission was not inadvertent.
Go Tara wrote:
The bottom line here is Tara didn't have a negative experience with Alberto and NOP. Her story confirms Alberto wanted her to be a healthy weight and Alberto provided access to licensed health professionals.
Tara is incredibly brave to write this as female cyberbullies like Kara Goucher are riding hard on the anti Nike and anti Alberto train doing everything she can to insult Nike and insult Alberto every chance she gets.
Well said. If I was a female I wouldn’t say anything as I wouldn’t want to cross Kara and her Oiselle Cyber team. At end of day it’s obvious Alberto was very involved in every aspect of his athletes including their running weight. This didn’t seem to be a problem with Kara until she found an ally in Mary to help pile on to Nike/Alberto.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot wrote:
runnnnner for sale. wrote:
I swear all the ex-female runners always seem to wind up in real estate. It shows you that they ain't that bright to begin with.
And Yes I know I'm ending a sentence with a preposition.
Or they simply have far fewer career fields leading to high earnings starting at age 30+ than even their male counterparts do. Nobody wants a 33 year old intern or entry level employee who hasn't been in touch with the field studied in college for a decade or more. Male or female. What, should she open a shoe store like Kennedy did?
Actually, what they're doing is incredibly smart. Real estate has a lot to do with name recognition and looks. It's a tough business, but they're starting with a leg up. It's a smart decision on their part.
runnersforsale has no idea what he's talking about.
Area Man: My local Planet Fitness has a scale. No one should have to consider mass in relation to athletic performance.