I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike

DNC Planned Parenthood then the New York Times ^ | Nov7,2019 | By Mary Cain

[NoLibZone]

Mary Cain’s male coaches were convinced she had to get “thinner, and thinner, and thinner.” Then her body started breaking down.

At 17, Mary Cain was already a record-breaking phenom: the fastest girl in a generation, and the youngest American track and field athlete to make a World Championships team. In 2013, she was signed by the best track team in the world, Nike’s Oregon Project, run by its star coach Alberto Salazar.

Then everything collapsed. Her fall was just as spectacular as her rise, and she shares that story for the first time in the Video Op-Ed above.

Instead of becoming a symbol of girls’ unlimited potential in sports, Cain became yet another standout young athlete who got beaten down by a win-at-all-costs culture. Girls like Cain become damaged goods and fade away. We rarely hear what happened to them. We move on.

Nike has come under fire in recent months for doping charges involving Salazar. He is now banned from the sport for four years, and his elite Nike team has been dismantled. In October, Nike’s chief executive resigned. (In an email, Salazar denied many of Cain’s claims, and said he had supported her health and welfare. Nike did not respond to a request for comment.)

[oldvirginian]

Zola Budd...a name I haven’t heard in a long time. The 84(?) Olympics where they tangled and Decker stumbled was the end for Decker and the shot out of the cannon for Budd.

[AppyPappy]

Luckily men can run as women now.

[utax]

Nuck Fike. I started buying their running shoes ~1975. No more nike slave-made crap for me or our family.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Athletes that join these “programs/factories” might as well be just another horse at Santa Anita.

[Hot Tabasco]

I suspect that the head of the running program, Salazar, is nothing but a hack and only got the job because of his own running history of marathon wins. And it should be noted that he surrounded himself with cronies who were also hacks.

I can't imagine the running sports these girls are involved in that the coach would demand weight loss as a means to enhance their running times. That just doesn't make sense considering all the calories they are burning in everyday training........The guy is a nut.

[simpson96]

Any Trump protest rally is loaded with really fast girls.

[1Old Pro]

Nike’s brand seems to be about losers, not winners.

[dead]

Interesting that the video, by the NYTimes, actually let her Cain state that a previous article in the NY Times Magazine about her training under Salazar was completely false. She calls them on their own fake news.

[Tax-chick]

Thank you for mentioning that. I did not see the video.

[litehaus]

bttt

[Fightin Whitey]

The Trump Re-election rally hasn’t made it to my time zone yet.

But I’ll keep an ear out!