Track star Mary Cain tells her story how the Nike Oregon Project outran her emotional and physical health
In 2013, Mary Cain became one of the youngest American Track and Field athletes to make a World Champions Team. She joined a competitive training program known as the Nike Oregon Project at an early age, without knowing the detrimental effects that would later sabotage her athletic career.
At 17-years old, Cain became a sensationalized athlete. She was offered the opportunity to train with head coach Alberto Salazar in the Nike Oregon Project that took talented athletes and trained them to compete at an elite level. Cain’s goal was to compete in the next Olympics and turning down the chance to work with Salazar and other phenomenal athletes would be crazy. Cain was discovered at such a young and vulnerable age, taking any opportunity towards her dream would be worth it — so it seemed.
Nike’s mission statement is, “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” On the latter, Alberto Salazar and his staff displayed a different image with the Oregon Project.
The New York Times Opinion published a video of Mary Cain’s story that revealed the truth behind her experience in working with Salazar.
Cain admits, “I was emotionally and physically abused by a system designed by Alberto and endorsed by Nike.”
When Cain joined the program, Salazar insisted she needed to lose weight in order to become faster. On the surface, Salazar’s advice made sense because there would be less weight to carry while running and Cain and her fellow athletes (mostly males) were also encouraged to lose weight to run faster. Cain also started a strict diet to help with weight loss.
There were no nutritionists a part of the program and this made losing weight even more dangerous. After months of trying to cut weight, Cain became very ill. Her body was malnourished and she was at high risk for osteoporosis and infertility. She missed her period for three years which lead to her breaking five bones and Cain also developed depression and started to cut herself. In the video, Cain mentioned some of the athletes she was training with saw her self-harming but didn’t do anything to stop her.
When she sought help from Salazar and told him about her self-harming, he didn’t do anything to help her. When Cain sought help from other couches who were apart of the program, all of them redirected her back to what she had heard before; follow what Salazar says — which was lose more weight.
The all-male staff coaches insisted Cain needed to be “thinner and thinner.” Salazar even wanted Cain to take birth control pills and diuretics to lose more weight, even though the use of diuretics isn’t allowed in the sport. Cain also revealed that she was weighed in front of her teammates and she would be shamed if she didn’t meet the required weight of 114 pounds.
Cain called out Nike in the video, “I got caught in a system designed by and for men, which destroys the bodies of young girls.”
The Nike Oregon Project was led by an all-male staff that was training young women like Mary Cain to fit into male standards. Doing so, it ruined the emotional and physical health of Mary Cain and other female Olympians such as Amy Yoder Begley and Kara Goucher, who were also part of the Oregon Project.
After the video released, Nike quickly responded to Cain about her allegations towards the program. Instead of apologizing to Cain about her terrible experience, Nike promptly stated their defense against Cain’s words, “These are deeply troubling allegations which have not been raised by Mary or her parents before.”
Nike followed with, “Mary was seeking to rejoin the Oregon Project and Alberto’s team as recently as April of this year and had not raised these concerns as part of that process.”
Nike furthered their statement by saying they took these allegations “extremely serious” and will launch an immediate investigation. As mentioned earlier of Nike’s mission statement, Nike also insisted Cain’s allegations were inconsistent with their values.
Although Cain’s claims were “inconsistent” with Nike’s values, Amy Begley, and Kara Goucher’s statements about the Oregon Nike Project remain solid and consistent with Mary Cain’s allegations.
Towards the end of the video, Cain urged further action towards the future of training female athletes. Although the Oregon Nike Project is no longer operating, one of Cain’s fear is that Nike will start up a new program that will continue with the same culture Alberto Salazar created — an atmosphere designed by men, for men.
Cain acknowledges that Nike has the opportunity to change their system of training athletes. She urges Nike and other elite programs to learn from Cain’s experience and to protect young female athletes.
As of now, Nike has prompted other top athletes to come forward to support Cain’s allegations towards Salazar.
Mary Cain's story has unraveled, but the movement towards protecting young female athletes is just beginning.
