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

Wow, I had been giving Nike/NOP some lenience with the recent suspension. Turns out Al really is just a piece of sh!t. All you fools blaming her need to smoke a J and chill out.

Mary made a lot of valiant points .Alberto gave these kids drugs and looked for every advantage . She is white and privileged that why she got so much money from Nike she only spoke out when her contract was done so that takes no bravery But anyone who follows track remembers NOP having great success with legendary workouts after the meets And those were impossible without drugs .They all moved to the Marathon because theres less testing but lets not just blame her.

Please stop the whining and deal with reality wrote:

Thin to win is accurate when it comes to distance runners, both male and female, it's just unfortunate that for females it often carries harsher penalties later in life. Everyone has choices.

Cain acknowledged that weight matters, but this story is about more than that.

1) Athletes should not be shamed and berated because of their weight, period.

2) Coaches with no expertise in nutrition should not be telling athletes what they're allowed to eat.

3) Athletes who have not even reached physical maturity should not be pushed to reach the same incredibly lean body composition as fully mature athletes.

4) Athletes should not be told to illegally abuse prescription drugs in order to lose weight.

AlexW136 wrote:

Mary Cain would’ve broken down exactly the same if she had chosen to run in college. As someone who ran D1 and has dozens of female friends who did, this is the norm. Weigh ins are mandatory and many factors go into determining the range you’re supposed to be in. And yes, your diet will come change if your not making that weight. Mary refused to stand up for herself, yes she was only 17, but many college athletes are and they stand up for their best interest. She’s the worst case of a sheltered teen running star who broke when pressured.

I also ran D1 and knew dozens of women that ran D1 and this is absolutely not the norm. At my school, weigh ins were mandatory once a year and the trainers made us turn our backs so we wouldn't see the weight. You only got weighed multiple times if they were concerned you were losing too much and they would have a number you had to stay above. This type of culture is absolutely not the way to have a successful program and perpetuating the myth that this type of behavior is the norm and acceptable is foolish and dangerous.

AlexW136 wrote:

Mary Cain would’ve broken down exactly the same if she had chosen to run in college. As someone who ran D1 and has dozens of female friends who did, this is the norm. Weigh ins are mandatory and many factors go into determining the range you’re supposed to be in. And yes, your diet will come change if your not making that weight. Mary refused to stand up for herself, yes she was only 17, but many college athletes are and they stand up for their best interest. She’s the worst case of a sheltered teen running star who broke when pressured.

"Anyone on this thread trying to summarize the article and video as merely Mary complaining about being told to lose weight is being intellectually dishonest."

Perhaps try reading the article wrote:

poi'8y wrote:

"Fifty-five percent of female recruits tested at the end of boot camp were doing fewer than three pullups"

What about the other 45%?

As far as the males from the article:

"only 1 percent of male recruits failed the test."

Also from the article you linked:

""At first, a lot of women weren't able to do it," Jacob says. "They were able to do one, some were able to do two, but what happened was by having that standard and enforcing that standard, it made my Marines, it made the troops go to the gym and train to that standard.""

"Within six months, all of the women in his company were doing eight to 12 pullups, he says."

OK.

As part of larger workouts, I do pull-ups and chin-ups about three times each week using various grips. I typically do:

Monday:

1 set x 7 pull-ups

Wednesday:

2 sets x 8 reps chin-ups

2 sets x 7 reps pull-ups

Friday:

2 sets x 8 reps chin-ups

2 sets x 7 reps pull-ups

That's 32 chin-ups and 35 pull-ups each week. I've been doing this most weeks for several years. I'm a man and I doubt I will ever find 15 chin-ups or pull-ups easy or unimpressive.

opportunistic pathogen wrote:

I really don't buy this story.

It's complete opposite of what other athletes say about Alberto being like father to them.

Smells fishy here

Lol. Do you not understand how abusive relationships work? Nobody tolerates abuse from people with whom they don't have a close relationship.

Nike almost ruined my career with their janky shoes. Now people trying to tell me to lose weight too. Enough is enough #Ibelievemary #metoo

getting to the starting line should be a priority. Not fantasizing over a 17 year olds weight like an old perv.

Wmass runner wrote:

A little before my time. Not sure when AS ran that 2 mile but recall article it was 9 flat hand timed . Ratcliffe ran 8:59.x his senior year which rounds up to 9 flat but as a rule supersedes AS handtime as new state record.

Salazar ran 8:53.8 two mile at Penn Relays his senior year, April 1976. His Wayland HS hall of fame page mentions it.

Also says that time stood as state record for more than 25 years.

High school federations are sometimes picky about which meets they will accept records from.

'76 was also my HS grad year and I recall Marc Bloom's annual review had a photo of Salazar crossing the finish line at Penn.

the difference between the behaviors Salazar encouraged and other ways to 'perform at peak potential' is that Salazar, as stated by Mary, used some seriously messed up methods of emotional manipulation and shaming to get Mary to drop to an UNHEALTHY weight in order to run well. It's one thing if an athlete, as determined by a DOCTOR, can lose a couple pounds to run more quickly and not harm their health. However, Mary was clearly running incredibly with the body she had. The notion that thinner is faster needs to be abolished. Infertility, osteoporosis, and the mental turmoil that accompanies constant underfueling is NEVER worth the short-term benefits of running quickly. An athlete who is properly fueling and showing up to put in the work will get there in time, WITHOUT this kind of irresponsible, greedy training. Yes, Mary may have listened to Salazar and lost the weight, but she likely did so thinking that she 1. HAD to follow exactly what she said due to being under contract, 2. did it because of the public shaming shaming Salazar used, in front of teammates and at meets, when she was not at his prescribed 'goal weight' and 3. did it because it seems her NOP teammates did not speak up and thus normalized this behavior. She got trapped in Salazar's little manipulative world, and he ruined an amazing athlete. So yeah. I think we can pretty confidently blame salazar for this tragedy.

daddy-NO(P) wrote:

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????

That was one thing I was wondering when Cain joined the group. Did her parents even know the allegations being said behind the scenes about Alberto? I thought honestly maybe I should call them. Not sure if it would have made a difference.

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

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. .

If any one on here witnessed Alberto publicly shaming her about her weight in 2015 at Oxy, please email me at

. You can stay anonymous if you like.

Goucher left NOP in 2011 . Cain joined in 2013. How can she not know? It's like how Rupp et all have never possibly heard of the "allegations against Salazar" until October 2019.

Seriously. Think about what you're saying. Otherwise you live in a world where Rupp had no clue.

Wouldn’t be surprised if he was groping these women too

I'm a skinny hobby jogger and can do 10 pullups and 30 pushups easily. With a tiny bit of training i could do more than 15/40. Don't need much strength if you don't weigh much.

Though in comparison I look obese to MC and others (my BMI is 19.2)

Pushing athletes to use banned diuretics is why Alberto is one of the many reasons Alberto is banned. It has already been noted by others on the boards how much Hassan's figure has changed since joining Alberto's group. Based upon Cain's comments, it is worth questioning whether those physical changes were obtained by legitimate means.

rojo wrote:

That was one thing I was wondering when Cain joined the group. Did her parents even know the allegations being said behind the scenes about Alberto? I thought honestly maybe I should call them. Not sure if it would have made a difference.

Didn't Alberto coach her when she was in high school too? Her parents chose Alberto Salazar before she even joined NOP. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

MRMRMRMR wrote:

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.

Guys. Other women starve themselves etc. So like it's totally ok.

I feel for Cain having felt the same pressures even without being in that competitive of an environment in HS. Every year at NXN or Footlocker you'd see super thin girls running extraordinary times and wonder if that's what it takes to be the best. In the NCAA there are always crazy fast freshman or upperclassmen that dropped weight and suddenly were on a completely different level. Look at elite distance running on a global scale and see super lean Kenyan and Ethiopian women dominating races.

It's a sad fine line of running at peak fitness while also being so close to the body breaking down and getting injured. You can see how Hasay while being an amazing athlete, has run 2:20 in the marathon but has multiple setbacks with injuries trying to maintain that level of fitness coupled with a ruthless diet/training regime. She is smaller than she was at 15.

https://i.imgur.com/Oz6xBQH.jpg