A combination of a male coach and a (young) female athlete is often complex. A lot of infamous cases. I think only her parents can play a role for her.
8
She's completely right. Men's bodies can tolerate a lower body fat percentage because they don't rely on estrogen to maintain bone strength. Women have an absolute floor for body fat percentage, below which their bones will become brittle and break. Below a certain percentage of body fat (6% +/- 1%), women's bodies will burn muscle tissue for energy. Literally, the muscles Mary needed for strength in her profession were being consumed for energy by her starving body.
We have known this for over 40 years. Shame on the men who did this to her.
63
For those brains who think losing a woman’s period is an essential part of the game to “win”, how about we cut off the testosterone to men athletes so it’ll be an even playing field?
36
When top athletes pick a coach, and find their performance going backward under that coach instead of forward, top athletes switch coaches. When they have parents, their parents which their coaches. I've read this article three times and I still can't figure out why that didn't happen here.
14
I like the fit of Nike shoes. I have for a while.
But, I am not buying any of them anymore.
I am not supporting this exploitation.
23
I never bought a Nike product and i will never buy one.
11
If this young woman was the fastest girl in America she already knew her body well. Being anorexic thin does not make a good athlete, being strong at your won body weight that works for you does. I'm not a professional but this seems elementary to me. Starved runners can't preform well.
13
All this stuff is true, yet nobody makes the athletes do it. None of my kids were ever All-Americans, Olympic athletes, all-state, or even all-conference in sports. They were what we call "quitters". I lectured them long and often about how coaches and teammates would try to bully them into doing things they shouldn't, and if they didn't like doing it, they should quit. They all did. Now we have a bunch of musicians in the family, and the enjoyment garnered from watching their performances now in adulthood is a hundredfold greater than any sporting event I've ever seen.
15
Good for Mary Cain for speaking out. Nike, you'd better "Just Undo it."
17
What's striking is how clueless Nike is about nutrition-- its lack of sound medical training. And of course the abuse of athletes that results. Such lack of vision!
17
Men and women should not be trained in the same way. They have different skeletal structures, different hormones, an different rates of maturation. Yet the coaches train them all like boys.
13
Today, Salazar released e-mails from Cain expressing her appreciation for his willingness to begin coaching her again in April 2019! Did the NYT's actually question Cain at all before releasing this tape?
3
I love you. You're perfect. Now change.
Nice job Nike. Is this how you do it?
Leave these unsuspecting kids out of your toxic culture.
8
Al Sal banned for four years? He should be banned for life. Both he and the NOP have been stains on the sport of running.
I’m glad these abuses are coming out to a wider audience, other than just in the running community.
People had wondered for a long time what had happened to Cain. When they saw who her coach was and what she was affiliated with, all questions were answered.
I wish her nothing but the best in her recovery. She deserves it.
18
Things are getting curioser.
In October of 2016, right after she left the Nike Oregon Project, Ms. Cain wrote on her personal blog that she had “enjoyed” her time there.
In May of this year, she said on a podcast (Citius Magazine) that leaving the NOP had been a “tough decision” and that her current relationship with coach Alberto Salazar was “good”.
Now this from Nike:
“These are deeply troubling allegations which have not been raised by Mary or her parents before,” a Nike spokesperson said. “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.”
3
The whole sports world is out of control. Whether it be the NCAA or Track and Field, it’s all been corrupted by money and hype. Even the Olympics are a joke. The US Team is no different than the Russians.
Get a life and run from it all.
7
These dim-witted coaches need to be under investigation. If she was that much of a phenom...shouldn't one believe she's already at her optimum body weight??? Some of this male coaching recklessness drives girls to eating disorders that in some cases cost them their lives. If a coach says "you need to lose weight", they need to document exactly what supports their unilateral assessment and others, perhaps a female or two, need to be involved in scrutinizing the assessment.
10
Time to boycott Nike.
5
As it relates to Nike at least, if you don’t like how young athletes are being treated, there is an easy and effective way to deal with this. Don’t purchase Nike products.
4
Looking at all the pictures of her, one wonders where they expected her to lose the weight from. Girl looks like she needs a big steak dinner in every photo.
7
Mary Cain's most damning claim was that she was physically (and emotionally) abused while she was one of Nike's sponsored athletes, but there was no detail as to what the physical abuse was.
Would someone from NYT please be able to provide context? I understand she was pressured to lose weight and she said she engaged in self-harm. However, claiming she was also physically abused certainly goes beyond that.
1
If it isn't Larry Nassar sexually abusing girls while Michigan State looks away, then it's a coach named Alberto Salazar abusing girls by starving them while Nike looks away. I am sickened beyond imagination. What next?
Heal, Mary; heal. You are loved.
7
Eigh... blame yourself. You did it to you. Nike did not FORCE you to do this... you CHOSE to. This is not a defense of Nike, I quit supporting them 30 years ago when it became clear they use slave labor. But hey slave labor is not as reportable by the NYT you get the clicks from creating a false argument about some girl who CHOOSE to do some crazy things to try and keep her sponsorship.
2
The reality is that she did not have the mindset and resolve of an elite level athletes. Yes she was definitely treated harshly but the best ones with that winning mentality come out of such situations on top. And unfortunately those that are not the best get left behind.
People like Rafa Nadal, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles all went through that strict, harsh training. They didn't give up.
Mary Cain is finding excuses for not being able to make it..
Its not enough to be talented and fast. You have to have the mental strength to succeed at the highest levels. Sorry as I'm sure my comment will sound terrible to most
6
I think it’s innaccurate to frame this as a gender issue. I doubt that Ms. Cain was treated any differently than her teammates, male or female, or that she would have been treated any differently by other coaches, male or female.
This is sport at the elite level, where the only object is winning. Both male and female athletes are asked to make sacrifices for short-term improvements in performance that are harmful in the long-term. For women, this means deciding whether or not they want to maintain a level of body fat sufficient to support a regular menstrual period. The hard fact of the matter is that, other things equal, a woman who is unwilling to make this sacrifice will lose to a woman who is.
Companies like Nike sponsor elite athletes in order to sell running apparel. The take-away here isn’t that “men in the sport abuse women in the sport”, it’s that recreational athletes, perhaps especially women, shouldn’t look to elite athletes as role models.
It’s also misleading to associate Ms. Cain’s story with Alberto Salazar’s doping ban. He was banned for giving too-large a dose of a legal supplement to a male athlete, then trying to cover it up.
320
@Anthony Knox The issue isn't gender, but sex. Male and female bodies develop differently. Male bodies are still the default in too many areas, and female bodies are treated as abnormal or broken when they're simply different.
411
@Anthony Knox “a woman who is unwilling to make this sacrifice will lose to a woman who is.”
You’re missing the point. Cain made, and was willing to make, the “sacrifice.” And she broke 5 bones due to an ignorant (at best) all-male coaching staff. And it ruined her body. I just can’t comprehend how people are trying to blame a 17-year-old here.
1041
@Meaux
Even if men’s and women’s bodies were the same, women would still be asked to be as lean as possible and to train as much as possible.
Every athlete has to decide for themselves if they want to do what it takes to compete at the elite level.
20
Absolutely horrifying.
Like many others, I've been a runner for most of my life; from UCLA cross-country on to being a weekend plus runner. I was never world class, never even close, but I did run across the Grand Canyon three times - 21.5 miles the way we did it, but harder than a marathon: six thousand feet of elevation gain, after five thousand of loss (whee!) - the North Rim is a thousand feet higher. And yes, I've run a marathon.
I can only hope that this woman's story will result in constructive changes in coaching. No one should be coaching young people unless they have a thorough understanding of human biology.
8
None of these athletes were forced to be in the program.
We do have an obligation to think and fight for ourselves. If the athlete is a minor, it's also on the parents.
So many people want to point to someone else, especially big organizations, avoiding the responsibility that they have.
We are responsible for what happens to us.
7
@Raz
How many kids or parents know about training world class athletes? How many world class athletes know about training world class athletes? Darn few, I assure you.
7
None of these athletes were forced to be in the program.
We do have an obligation to think and fight for ourselves. If the athlete is a minor, it's also on the parents.
So many people want to point to someone else, especially big organizations, avoiding the responsibility that they have.
We are responsible for what happens to us.
1
Besides having exploited child labor in Asia, Nike also manages to avoid paying local taxes in Oregon, by having arranged for their headquarters enclave to be districted outside Beaverton, which surrounds it. People there fear that if the company is challenged they'll pick up their toys and move all their jobs elsewhere.
12
The title of the story is very unfortunate (and misleading). She was the fastest in her particular events, but not the fastest in many other events. And there was no guarantee that she would have continued to dominate as she matured, regardless of where she trained. Many, many high school phenoms sputter out.
8
This is sad, but not surprising. Although coaches and trainers in sports purport to use "scientific" methods, and of course some really do in some situations, mostly it's a jock culture that perpetuates myths.
1
Brave and wonderful young woman. Brava! I hope you will have all the support you deserve from now on.
3
It is a complex issue.
USDA says food contains significantly fewer nutrients due to farming practices.
USDA also says the average American diet is 60% processed food.
Then the 2006 IOM report concludes the RDA/DRI are inadequate for training athletes.
The military data suggest 20% of young women arrive for training with osteopenia/osteoporosis (Lappe). Roughly 25% of women and 9% of men arrive iron anemic (Cropper). Malnutrition increases after entry (Westphal, McAdams, etc.).
CDC NHANES says bone BMD across the population is decreasing.
The combined effect of poor training practices (workload, work-rest cycles, mileage, muscle imbalances, etc.) and malnutrition creates injuries that do not heal well (some re-injury rates are 350%). Some of which like Femoral Neck Fractures are a lifetime injury.
If the national health standard is NHANES (comprehensive blood chemistry and bone status), then why isn't that the athletic health standard?
Some researchers compares bones to steel girders. Wrong. Bone are a living adaptive protein-mineral-fat matrix that depend on both exercise and available raw materials to repair and grow. No fresh materials for re-modeling? Bones get weaker.
Any coach/trainer pushing these destructive agendas are at best misinformed and at worst grossly incompetent.
8
The only thing Nike is concerned about is selling shoes. Just look at their commercials, the image is the message.
Exercise should be about wellness. This preoccupation about "competition" is destructive.
4
OK = many years ago when i graduated from high school i weighed 178 pounds and was extremely fit; after college when I was drafted into the Army i was a soft 180 pounds. Thanks to the Army I weighed 140 pounds. While I could do a lot of pull ups and push ups i was weak and could not perform work I used to with ease..Sorry about your treatment Mary
5
Dear Nike, as a female athlete, consider yourself permanently banned from my closet. I'll donate the few Nike items I have instead of trashing them, but I will definitely take a sharpie to your logo before I do that. Let's end this deeply embedded misogyny that I suspect every female athlete in the world has experienced in her lifetime. If I have a daughter who becomes an athlete, I'll be keeping a sharp eye on what she goes through after seeing Mary Cain's experience, and experiencing my own share of high school/ collegiate sports issues. Use your power wisely, or consider it lost.
14
Thank you, Mary, for coming forward with your experiences. This is the way women athletes are trained in this country - be anorexic, ignore what your body tells you and, most of all, listen to a bunch of misogynists who couldn't possibly have your best interest at heart. This system will only change when young women choose to stand up and LEAD. Your Opinion piece in the New York Times is a good start. Hats off.
9
So Nike's job is to sell 'stuff'. 'Stuff' that looks good on skinny women because that's the American model. It's easy for Nike to skinny down a few top female runners so they look good in the 'stuff' Nike is trying to sell. When they break down, Nike can then throw them away and look for a new champion runner, to skinny down to push their 'stuff' to female runners. Never mistake greed for supporting a sport.
531
@Glenda Yes. This.
9
@Glenda I see your point but Mary was already super thin to start. They wanted winners, and the coach thought being thin to the point of not having menses was how to win.
17
@Glenda
People don't realize how abusive corporate America is. Its abusive because it doesn't look at the people anymore. Its ok to worry about the abused female athletes, but what about the "cheaper" throwaway Amazon warehouse workers who are afraid to pee, as the AI will mark that off against their productivity and dashes off a "you're fired" letter their supervisors don't even see? This is worse than any Hollywood dystopian scenarios, because its already happening, and years before their time.
39
I don't understand why anyone would think that restricting nutrition would produce a strong body. Thinness is not the goal; the goal is strength, agility, whatever other physical characteristics are needed for your particular sport. The loss of fat is a side effect of athleticism. Athletes have great bodies because they train.
The thought of men imposing their notions of women's bodies and how they should look and be controlled onto female athletes is repulsive (though I also recall a Times article about a male figure skater under thinness pressure). It's almost as if a woman athlete is "dangerous" because physical strength is a form of power, and therefore she has to be contained into traditional female frailty. Another reason we women should all be grateful to the Williams sisters for being astonishing and refusing to be merely dainty.
2153
@C Wolfe
Sounds like taking the Nike ad line of "No Pain, No Gain" too far.
I was in sports in my youth, and I was always thin, without trying. Ate large quantities and rarely gained a pound. That said, my mother always taught me to listen to my body. If you have pain, it's a warning to stop doing the thing that is causing it. And if you have hunger, your body needs energy. Simple.
Athletes need energy. More than just burning calories at a high rate, they sweat out potassium and nutrients. Those need to be replaced.
Doesn't matter if the athlete is male or female.
Train hard and eat all you need. But eat good quality food. Nature will do the rest.
118
@C Wolfe bad-faith coaches promote short-term weight loss (even at the expense of important nutrients and muscle building) because, at least in distance running, being lighter DOES help you run faster. Of course losing weight because of poor nutrition or overtraining is unsustainable, but often the devastating consequences and even the performance slips are years down the road.
72
@C Wolfe In certain sports, especially distance sports, weight is a big part of the equation. In cycling for example a tour de france champion needs to be around 2-3% body fat for those 3 weeks to stand any chance of winning. The US Postal team (of armstrong fame) would do 5 hour training rides and come back and take sleeping pills in order to stave off hunger.
The problem is when these methods are applied uniformly and without nutritionists monitoring their implementation. Certain people perform better at heavier weights than they would at lighter weights. Its absurd to just blindly assume that thinner= better
85
It's hard to believe the abuses that Mary suffered are merely the result of an ill-conceived coaching regimen that imposed the same demands on female athletes as on males. They seem part of a deeper, more insidious and misogynistic mindset. The male-dominated worlds of sports, religion, government, fashion, etc. are all obsessed with controlling women's bodies. Women's bodies are not out of control. These structures of oppression must go. Women everywhere -- young, middle-aged and old alike -- must continue to speak out and say "No!"
1247
@Jamakaya Men wanting to control women's bodies is one lens with which to view this story, but it is not the most accurate if you have been around elite sports. The athletes of all genders are too often treated as objects for the coaches' and business owners' success and financial gain. They too often use extreme regimens based on personal experience rather than scientific evidence and have little regard for any long-term ramifications for the athlete. If you view this tragedy as primarily a gender issue, you are only seeing a part of a much larger problem.
82
@Jamakaya You're 100% right that the "structures of oppression must go", but it is going to take more than women - the oppressed - speaking up and fighting. Men, who created these systems and continue to benefit from them, have to be integral in breaking down these structures. Outside of a violent and bloody revolution (sorry, I don't see that happening), it's virtually impossible for an oppressed class to make change on their own.
Putting the onus on women to speak up and say "No!" is not fair. It's the same misguided logic of "lean in". Women didn't create this power structure, and they should not be the only ones responsible for dismantling it.
56
@Jamakaya There have always been women who said "no." And they've been gaslighted, blacklisted, ostracized, shunned, even tortured and burned at the stake.The difference today is that we are finally listening to the women who say "no." Because of all the women who came before and sacrificed everything to shift the culture to hear and respect woman's boundaries.
39
The amount of victim blaming I'm seeing around this story is pathetic. Alberto was in a position of power and he abused it by doing his utmost to break down, and therefore control, a teenager in his trust. He wraps himself in pseudoscience but he's not a qualified nutritionist or anything other than an totalitarian coach. Anyone can systematically break down athletes and claim success when only the strongest are left standing. Alberto seems to have gone even farther with his domineering attitude -- I'm waiting for the sexual abuse allegations to surface next.
12
Thoughts:
It's capitalism, laissez faire, anything to make a buck.
It's willful ignorance. There really are gender differences.
It's unbounded ego.
It's not every coach.
1
The top issue for me is really the junk science, or no science at all, that lets trainers make decisions and create programs for their athletes without consulting or employing nutritionists, physicians, psychologists and physiologists. There is research out there, there are professionals with expertise in the body and mind; they should be employed, consulted and listened to, so we're not just taking the word of so-called experts with no scientific background or training.
6
When a sports goods company runs a training program...it's hard to believe it's not looking at corporate interests first.
2
Is Nike guilty of holding a gun to someone’s head? No. In this instance, common sense says walk (or run) to someone else’s coaching. It’s difficult to understand why anyone would take such abuse. In other words, wake up!
Salazar and Nike ain’t the only game in town, just the wealthiest. It’s important to remember performance at the US trials, typically the national championship, determines who makes the national team or Olympic team not who your coach is. Those who believe there is a single coach or system that grooms top flight talent have blinders on. Sorry, no sympathy here.
4
@Stan, with their current crop of shoes, Nike surely are the only game in town, and will be until the shoes are banned or 'copied'.So yeah, fairly big pressure to be nike.
1
The headline for this story provocative, but I think it sends the wrong message. What if Salazar's training methods had been successful? If Cain had broken a world record, would that have vindicated him? Abusive behavior is abusive, regardless of the outcome. Cain's declining performance was in a way her salvation -- it made it easier for her to walk away.
4
So my rapist was actually a blessing because... Sorry. Can’t think of anything... Condoning abuse is facilitating abuse.
3
There is a long history, of course, of men questioning whether women should participate in sports at all. They argued, using contrived scientific evidence, that women's physiques were too fragile. Here's a case of a man pushing a woman to the point where she *becomes* fragile. Both extremes show men trying to assert their dominance. Thank you, Mary Cain, for arguing that women need to be in charge of their own bodies and their own athletic achievement.
3
Aren't we being more than a little disingenuous here? This isn't news to anyone, is it? In various degrees, this sort of abuse by coaches is widespread, it is well-known and it has gone on forever. From the local high-schools team to the nationally ranked one, the chimera of trophies, games, championships makes schools and parents complicit. Schools strive to instill self-esteem in their students, parents worry about their children's feelings in the playground and in the classrooms, but when it comes to sports it's a different story. It seems they are exempt from the rules that govern good child rearing.
Thank you Mary Cain for making us pay attention to it.
4
Mary Cain- hope you are able to run your race knowing that we are behind you. Dare we hope that there are chapters in your running history yet to be written? I turn 49 and still running- hoping to qualify for Boston some day.
I am sorry this was something you endured- unfortunately, i do not think you are alone in this situation. The more awareness there is the better champions we can be for those in your situation.
4
Gymnasts, runners, football, hockey, on and on and on. Injury, illness. Why on earth does any parent let any child participate in any of these "sports" - if what was done to these children for "sports" took place in any other situation, it would be - and should be - child abuse. Walk, swim, run around outside. But professional "sports" - forgetaboutit!
53
I need new running shoes and now I feel conflicted. Nike feels like the only brand nowadays. It's almost like buying shoes in the Soviet Union, in a way. Way better shoes. But sometimes it feel almost like the official state-mandated brand. I will have to do research now on non-Nike shoes.
2
@Patricia there has never been more varied running shoe companies and brands as there are now
3
@Patricia — I wore Nikes for years, and when I needed to get new shoes recently, my running store gave me several other options. I decided on another brand, and could not be happier. I feel a huge difference in fit, performance, etc.
Nike wants you to think it is the only game in town. Not so! That is Nike believing its own hype. Ask your running store pro, and do your research.
6
Thank you Mary Cain. I competed as a young woman (from 9-18) and thankfully, had caring coaches and even at one point a female coach (which is a rarity). Your points are all valid and true. I can't wait to see more female coaches. We have a long way to go in that endeavor. Here is to your next adventure.
5
I was shocked, angered and saddened to read this story and view the video. I will never buy a Nike product again to be in solidarity with Ms Cain and all teenage athletes who have suffered as she has. I sincerely hope that this abuse of teenage athletes is both severely punished and is swiftly ended, and replaced with appropriate expertise that is warranted.
8
Mary Cain, I salute your courage to stand up for what is right!
I've just spent the last two hours reading The New York Times. I started with an article on WeWork's founder and ousted CEO Adam Neumann. Next came an article published earlier this year on the hustle culture that so many people -- young and not so young -- are addicted to. Then there was the Trump administration update du jour. Billionaires' frightened reaction to Elizabeth Warren's tax proposals followed. And now this piece on winning at any cost.
There is something terribly wrong with the values that are driving our culture. Our definition of success is embedded in notions of artificial power and the external trappings that go along with it, all of which are rooted in the fear of not being innately worthy as we are.
Why can't we see that authentic power and success come from within? It's all about being aligned with who we are at our core. Thinking, speaking and behaving in accordance with our essence is what living successfully really means, doesn't it? Acting on purpose and impacting the lives of others from a place of love rather than fear would be so much more fulfilling, don't you think?
Thank goodness for the two articles I just read that were written by the children of transgender parents. The honesty, vulnerability, courage and unconditional love these children
-- and their parents -- embody provided a badly needed counterpoint to the rest of my reading.
I think I need a crossword puzzle ...
6
It's the system - so deeply sexist. Just look at the woman's Soccer team that wasn't allowed to participate in the Olympics because they wore head scarves. A few years later the same team from Iran was allowed to participate in the Olympics WITH head scarves, but now six of the team's eight members were men in head scarves (trans-cis-men). Their coach is also a man. How do these outnumbered women feel? Feel like just like giving up. Seems like men in head scarves are more acceptable than women in scarves. ??!!
2
As a former Nike employee, I found Mary's account of her experience so familiar. The male-centric, cult mentality of Nike -- put up, shut up; you're just lucky to be here -- pervades the corporate culture in similarly insidious ways. I left five years ago and still feel as if I'm in recovery from the toxic environment and psychological damage it did to me. It's 10,000 times worse for women, too. I very much admire Mary's courage in speaking out about what she came to recognize as abuse. It's hard to see it when you're in it.
9
Never have been a big fan of Nike, but also very familiar with problems women encounter in ballet, gymnastics, figure skating etc.
Some women have the body type considered to be perfect for these activities, now running is included.
Others suffer trying to reach that pinnacle.
I think most women make the tradeoff psychologically, but parents should step in when it's high school or even college.
Also appears this could be addressed in events that are US athletes competing against other US athletes.
But not sure how this works at the international or Olympic level, as you see body types of different nationalities.
There is a reason that especially in marathon races the athletes are bone thin in the winners circle, and American women of certain body types have to decide whether to sacrifice to achieve this or not compete on that level.
The whole world is not going to change for these athletes.
1
I have coached high school girls cross country for 40 years. On several occasions I have intervened when an athletes BMI looks really low. The "female triad" is real but gets little support in high school and beyond. In high school at least there should be a limit on BMI at which point the athlete could not compete until they reached a healthy BMI index. Unfortunately no one seems to want to go there.
6
Thank you so much for bravely sharing your story, Ms. Cain. You inspire and will help to right a clearly broken system for the next generation of girls coming up. Your candor and transparency must have been hard won within a system designed to make you doubt yourself and your own experience. Can't wait to see what you do next with your talent, wisdom, and clarity. Wishing you every success and happiness in running and beyond.
4
I’m sorry to say this abusive style of coaching is not just a male phenomenon. My daughter rowed in high school with a girl who went on to row at a D1 college.
The female head coach demanded that her varsity girls (six footers all) make weight as lightweights, which is 130 pounds. Weigh-ins were public and shaming. Our friend quit during her first season.
Thanks to Mary Cain for giving girls the ammunition to stand up in these situations they know are not right. The girls shouldn’t have to leave; it should be the abusive coaches who are shown the door.
142
@Kelly Nowhere in the article does she say it is because of male coaches.
She is saying that all training regimens are based on men and treat women as small men and not as biologically different who need different training regimens.
3
@Marcela: Please re-read the article. Male coaches are blamed from the start, and they deserve to be.
3
Mary, you have been a hero to my daughters for years, ever since you so kindly spoke to them at a youth running event. And you are even more so now with your courageous willingness to come forward now. Thank you for being you:a smart,kind, wonderful human being.
18
Boy, you totally misunderstood this video and article @anthony Knox.
It’s BECAUSE she’s a woman that these issues arose. They were training her like a boy. They were all guys who used their experiences (not their education, as most evidently didn’t really have education/training to coach) which were male experiences. She should have had women guides - women who had periods; women who had female bodies; women who had empathy for a young woman stuck in a male-dominated system. But that’s not Nike’s way.
Nike has had a history for DECADES of having bad - unhealthy - coaching, but money talks. Most women I know stopped buying Nike products years ago, because of their bad reputation. Nike is supported by universities who sign exclusive deals with them. NOT by fitness fanatics. Fitness fanatics have know about Nike’s dark side for ages.
Rewatch her video. Look at those women athletes. They look terrible. Anyone can tell that’s not a healthy look.
.
13
This sounds so chillingly like the elite sports programs of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Story-after-story of young athletes who were physically and emotionally broken, then abandoned as useless damaged goods.
6
I was subjected similar abuses in ballet in the 70's. The female dancers were supposed to stay at 110 pounds. If you didn't, you didn't get roles or promoted. Most of the girls made themselves vomit to stay thin.
Nike is such a huge business conglomerate especially here in Eugene and at U of O Phil Knight's money and influence are everywhere. It is shameful they way Nike manages their elite athletes. They should have nutritionists and psychologists readily available. Even top ballet companies now have nutritionists on staff to keep their performers in peak health.
Thank you Mary Cain for speaking out about the abuse you suffered at Nike.
9
@yvonne As having studied ballet myself as a kid in the 80s, I understand what you are saying. But running and ballet differ in a few ways- First, if you go pro in ballet, it means men are going to need to lift you. You cannot be overweight for that. Second, going en pointe is very serious- if you're overweight, there's a chance you could damage your joints, your back, your feet- permanently. I do not advocate starving oneself or hurting oneself in order to participate at all, and certainly everyone should be monitored by a competent physician. But let's not pretend it's ok to be overweight in most competitive sports/physical activity.
1
@atb, I’m not sure how you define overweight in a sport. I’m happy I’m in a sport, Brazilian a Jiu Jitsu, that has weight brackets so women can compete at any end of the weight spectrum. Some of the women at the higher end of the weight spectrum are fantastic athletes, as are the women at the lower end. I once rolled with a woman who was over six feet tall and I know from rolling with men her size that she must be at least 200 lb. She was incredibly fit, They also have age brackets too which I also think is fantastic. So I was able to compete in an International championship at the age of 62. FWIW I won double golds.
1
@atb
No one is saying any runner or dancer should be overweight.
1
Insane. What were the coaches thinking? Or, to put it another way: Are coaches really that dumb? It seems they know squat about biology. Explains why world-class athletes keep getting caught doping themsleves. Also explains the mind-boggling market in "supplements".
4
I was subjected similar abuses in ballet in the 70's. The female dancers were supposed to stay at 110 pounds. If you didn't, you didn't get roles or promoted. Most of the girls made themselves vomit to stay thin.
Nike is such a huge business conglomerate especially here in Eugene and at U of O Phil Knight's money and influence are everywhere. It is shameful they way Nike manages their elite athletes. They should have nutritionists and psychologists readily available. Even top ballet companies now have nutritionists on staff to keep their performers in peak health.
Thank you Lindsay Crouse for speaking out about the abuse you suffered at Nike.
1
Awesome person!
I think male coaching is also hurting women's tennis, especially at a young age. Women are constantly held back by the subconscious restrictions their coaches place on them. There are still a much higher percentage of boys committed to practicing an all court game these days. A full range of athleticism dropped in the women's game in the mid 2000s as male coaches aggressively pushed female players to be like others at the top (S. William's, M. Sharapova) instead of more complete athleticism players (V. Williams, F. Sciavone). It's hard to explain, but it has a decent bit to do with simply not being a women. A certain disconnect. Maybe fear of taking risks, maybe "honestly" and "innocently" thinking women are less capable. But things are changing. Serves are getting better, finishing at the net is up (N. Osaka, K. Pliskova). Male or Female coach, the goal is working with the athlete like the Williams father did. It's sad to say as a man it takes deliberate action to overcome this way of thinking. Coaching is still dominated by men, but slowly changing. The simplest, quickest and healthiest way to move forward in female sports (and possibly all sports) is to put women in leadership and coaching positions. They're just as qualified. And like the repeated results in the medical world that women doctors have better outcomes for all patients, this could be true in sports also . . .
6
Weight loss obsession is stupid.
If Mary Cain was the fastest with her
usual weight, why did she have to lose
weight. Salazar seem to be a shady
character. BBC had done thorough
investigation and found Salazar
indulging in dubious behavior including
use of performance enhancement
drugs. It is the same story of abuse
in gymnastic, baseball, football.
I watch tennis because I haven't
heard any unseemly stories of
Roger Federer, Nadal or Djokovic.
Tennis and Golf are the clean sports.
3
I grew up swimming for a team in Oregon just down the street from the Nike world headquarters. The program was old school: the more you put in the more you get out, and nothing you ever put was 'enough'. I was 11 when I started swimming twice per day. I was 13 when I was told to lose weight, and on off-mornings I was instructed to wake up early to run a few miles before school. I experienced some pain in my shoulders and lower back in my teens, but I considered myself lucky not to need surgery as several of my female teammates did during that time. At 18, my coach pointed to a younger teammate who had barely reached puberty and told me I would not improve unless my body looked more like hers.
When I went to swim for my university, my coaches explained to me that I needed to eat lunch. At 19, I broke university records and qualified for the Olympic Trials. At 20, I over trained and hurt my chest. What happened after was two-fold. Conditioned over time to ignore my own pain, shamed into believing my experience of pain was never valid, I struggled to voice the extent to which I was suffering at this time. And when I tried, my coaches, irritated with my dissipating contribution to the team, did little to understand or support me. To them I was soured milk, useless and expired.
I have learned to live with chronic nerve damage in my ribs. I used to blame myself. But I've woken up these past few years. Stories like these are the norm. It's systemic.
15
Thank you, Mary, for sharing your story. The more girls like you speak up about their harrowing experiences, the more empowered will girls who are currently going through such abuse feel.
One thing that particularly touched me was the question whether things would have been better if more women were coaching or advising sports teams. And I would truly like to think that women, as a rule, would be more empathetic to topics such as menstruation and weight loss. But if you take a look at sports like figure skating and rhythmic gymnastics, things look a lot bleaker. Many years ago I competed for my country too, and I was emotionally and physically abused too---by a range of different women. To me, such abuse is not a manifestation of systemic sexism, but an indication that in professional sports the athlete is worth less than his or her achievements.
6
As a high school and collegiate cross country runner, Mary Cain's story hit close to home.
In high school, I became one of the top runners in the state, but I lost my period for six years in the process and stayed at an unnaturally low weight to fit into my expectation of what a runner should look like. During this time, I isolated myself and became single minded in my desire to become faster. Unfortunately, the atmosphere of the running world, especially as pertaining to women, fueled my desire to stay small, lean, and fast. Among my teammates, puberty, weight gain, and periods were looked at as something to be afraid of. We starved ourselves and ran extra miles to delay the slow down that we saw as inevitable with puberty. When I finally did regain weight, get my period, and, yes, become a little slower, I was devastated. I felt worthless and became severely depressed.
For the culture of running to change, we need to start at the lowest levels-high school or middle school running-when girls are first introduced to the sport. We need to teach young women (and men) that they are worth more than their running PRs and potential college scholarships. Even at the high school level, the amazing sport of running has become somewhat distorted into a sport of winning at all costs, instead of a sport of life.
9
Now is a great opportunity for Mary Cain to step forward and become a coach. I appreciate that it is difficult to say no to their parents and coaches when they are young and gifted athletes. The competition at all levels is great and only increases as they rise to higher levels in their sport.
I was a recreational middle aged runner and also a running coach for beginner female runners at our local YMCA. I had a group of about 40 ladies between the ages of 18-32 that I led on group runs around our local park and back to the Y. It was a fun time for everyone and we got a lot of beeps and waves from the cars going by. Many guys asked me how did I get a job like that. Of course I never encouraged my beginner class to lose weight but in the larger running community to which I belonged weight lose and injuries were an ongoing part of the local amateur scene. I always keep my weight down to improve performance and eventually was forced to quit running because of recurring injuries. Almost everyone I ran with as well retired from running because of injuries and a few of the female runners developed eating disorders.
The benefits of sports is obvious to me after a lifetime of participation in many of them however for most of us there are painful consequences at times. I approach 70 years old and I could feel the the pain from injuries incurred 20 years ago in yoga class this morning.
2
Excellent article and a brave video. Like some others have commented, I remember the splash Mary Cain made in the running world with her many accomplishments. One thing I have missed in both article and video was some idea of why anyone considered Alberto Salazar a successful coach. He was an outstanding runner with a number of marathon victories. Mr. Salazar seems to be another great athlete who can't coach.
3
The reality is that thinness works in the running world. I remember seeing Mary Decker Slaney (at the time, the World Record holder in the mile, 5000 and 10,000 meter distances) and noting with shock how thin she was even compared to the other runners. As long as winning is the "only thing" in track and field, we are going too see more of this kind of thing.
1
I think that parents share some blame. Don't they see what is happening to their children? Doesn't the athlete have some responsibility to speak up to the coach? Part of the problem is the athlete wants to win. Their parents want them to win. Part of the problem is these coaches have no one to answer to. The programs need a person with equal authority to the coach to monitor the rights of the athletes and make sure there is no abuse of any kind. We need to take the coaches off their pedestals.
7
Not a runner. Women are treated differently starting with the uniforms. Why the bare midriffs when the guys have full shirts? Same thing in many sports. Gymnastics, ice skating, tennis and so on. Until THAT sexism is addressed women will still be thought of as objects.
4
@Lisa It used to be that female track athletes competed in tank tops and shorts. Nowadays they're basically wearing bikinis.
2
Salazar should not be suspended. He should be in jail. What he did to these girls is criminal. And Nike should indemnify them all. I wish they would sue the pants out of the company. Three years without a period, risk of osteoporosis and infertility?!!!
10
Nike is shameless. They make shoes (actually, they have them made outside the US) and that's it. Their political vents of late and now this is enough for me to never by anything with that Nike swosh again. Ever.
4
Sports have become big business for big corporations instead of being entertainment and healthy fun for both spectators and athletes.
The price is being paid by the unhealthy lifestyles of these athletes.
Every athlete is an adult, most of the time, who can choose to heed the ridiculous demands of their sponsors and coaches, or take care of themselves and enjoy their athleticism in a sane way without damaging their bodies for the glory of winning.
Personal responsibility is still the name of the game in my opinion.
2
Losing their periods is a profound health crisis for women during their fertile years, indicative of famine level deficits in nutrition, leading to disruption of all body systems.
Women who are otherwise healthy who lose their periods are in so many kinds of physical and emotional jeopardy
These coaches should be prosecuted and punished.
15
Thank you, Mary Cain, for your courage in speaking out against Salazar and Nike. I am so sorry you had to suffer. I hope that by speaking truth to power, positive change will come to women in sports. Keep going forward. We support you!
13
Mary, YOU ARE AMAZING. So strong and beautiful. How dare they abuse you like this and steal those years from you--and almost, your life. When you said they wanted you to lose weight, I looked at your photo and thought; from WHERE? You were already as lean as can be. And in the photos after, you looked sad and ill. Thank you for helping other young girls by speaking out about this. This coach deserves more than a four years ban.
I hope you are running again, now, and that he/they have not taken away your love of that.
12
Great article. Thank you for writing.
5
Umm...there were negative repercussions while trying to be the best in the world? What a shocker.
4
How, in this day and age, does a sports program with (one assumes) all the funding needed to have the very best standards of practice, manage to be so horrifying? Forget about the cruel and ignorant men running the program, where was NIKE oversite? No nutritionist, no monitoring of bone mass and periods while at the same time forcing young women to exercise excessively while maintaining unnaturally low weight? Nike is vile and I will never purchase another product from them. Ugh.
9
Cain experienced an extreme version of what, I'm pretty sure, all 'girl' runners in the US (and probably elsewhere) experience. I was a college middle distance runner, recruited, and had a very similar experience in terms of being pressured to maintain a crazy low weight. I had no periods for 8 years, my entire competitive career (high school & college), even so I was constantly pressured to get my weight lower because, as a muscular person, I still weighed more than 100 pounds (5'7"). Looking back, what I remember is how, when I was a kid, I *loved* to run. Just loved it. And how damaged that love was by what amounted to by the constant and unending feeling of being too 'fat.'
11
Just saw in a comment on training technique that the incredible and accomplished altitude runner and athlete, Killian Jornet, asked about weight, said he never 'compromises' calorie intake (it's the upped training).
Compromises" strikes one as the apt word. Prioritizing caloric restriction for serious athletes does not sound right even from a basic common sense point of view.
I do wonder whether there were any lateral alliances among fellow women competitors on the Nike team that might have provided understanding and social support for this young woman, even if there were no official women coaches, or if she might have researched and googled nutrition online and engaged in a bit of pushback?
It's also understandable, though, that a relationship that is hierarchical or feudal and based in the idiosyncrasies of those who control the show might have headed south into nonnegotiation or noncommunication and dysfunction.
Assertive negotiation with those who appear to be in power to control your career is a high level adult skill which grown adults also struggle to have.
3
The accomplished altitude runner and athlete, Killian Jornet, asked about weight, said he never 'compromises' calorie intake (it's the upped training). Compromises" strikes one as the apt word.
In general, prioritizing caloric restriction for serious athletes does not sound right. There are other priorities.
1
The accomplished altitude runner and athlete, Killian Jornet, asked about weight, said he never 'compromises' calorie intake (it's the upped training). Compromises" strikes one as the apt word.
In general, prioritizing caloric restriction for serious athletes does not sound right. There are other priorities.
Just saw in a comment on training technique that the incredible and accomplished altitude runner and athlete, KillianJornet, asked about weight, said he never 'compromises' calorie intake (it's the upped training).
"Compromises" would be the correct word. Prioritizing caloric restriction for serious athletes does not sound right even from a common sense point of view.
3
As a parent with a daughter competing in collegiate track in Eugene, Oregon (the "Land of Nike"), there are three simple reasons I stopped enabling (purchasing) Nike - 1.) Kaepernick, 2.) Salazar and 3.) Parker. America's protection of female athletes under Title IX does not appear to condone turning males into females via chemicals or turning women into widgets via profit. Women, certainly the ones in my life, are priceless daughters of the Ancient of Days. My wife and my daughter can't be replaced. Shoes can.
55
@Mark Spencer The number one reason you stopped buying Nike is because a professional football player stood up against police brutality towards black men? Not the fact that Nike vigorously exploits poor men, women, and children in underdeveloped foreign countries for labor? Oh Mark.
51
@Mark Spencer I absolutely agree, shoes can be replaced. Being an athlete and of that culture is a cultural belonging, trait, desire. But it is not the all. As adults that support other impressionable adults in our roles as parents, teachers, coaches, etc. we must support them to attain goals, but not at the expense of physical and mental health. Coaches get away with a lot, it's not until there is a scandal of some sort that we look more closely or are even interested. I treat sexual abusers for a living in Oregon, the amount of people who noticed things within families, schools and in the community is quite a bit, but like here, it remains the look the other way, mind your own business, or someone tells you to do that at the expense of another. We must start evidencing a higher level of concern for each other to prevent offensive behaviours in general. Thank you for your comment.
@Mark Spencer
You lost me at Colin.
Trying to protect the lives of young black males is offensive to you?
You seem to be confused.
Nike is repulsive for the treatment of these young athletes. The one good thing they ever did was stand by Kaepernick
19
I'm confused by this story. Were the athletes asked to slim down for Ad campaigns? Unless excess weight Is getting in the way, coaches usually don't focus so much on actual weight of the athlete as they do performance.
When I was training heavily at that age I couldn't keep weight on. I was eating every second just to keep from burning muscle mass. What am I missing?
@David The fact that she's female and that girls/women/females in general, develop differently and at different rates than men, for one.
@David Men have faster metabolisms than women.
2
Thank you, Ms. Cain for your brave exposure of a corporate juggernaut.
Parents, when our young children are incredibly vulnerable to abuse. Teach them early and often to find a voice when something is wrong.
4
This isn't just a women's issue, however, it is a general sports issue. And not just professional sports, it reaches down through college and high school, as those are both supply chains that funnel into professional sports.
Greed is at the root of it, from top to bottom. Yes, a few professional athletes stand to make a ton of money, but how many people get chewed up by the system from middle school to the medal podium?
And the public is complicit in the whole scheme as consumers.
1
I am so proud of Mary Cain for speaking out for all female athletes and for making our sport better. I am excited for her comeback. Run like the wind, Mary! Get it girl!
I wanted to express my support of Mary (& athletes like her) & the sport itself. However, I also wanted to express my outrage at 2 groups:
1) Salazar and coaches of the same mentality. You are damaging my sport. You recruit athletes who depend on you for guidance & you humiliate them, starve them & then expect them to perform because you lack basic knowledge about how boys & girls develop AND you care only about the "image" of a runner. Competitive distance runners might LOOK skinny upon first impression, but they are strong & powerful. That strength comes only from appropriate training.
*My coach explained to me that training was being consistent with 1) daily running (& going to practice); 2) proper nutrition; 3) proper sleep & rest; 4) cross- & strength-training; 5) mental exercises to build focus
2) The self-righteous, ignorant people making comments in this section, about how running (competitively) is to blame. You know nothing about the sport, except for having anecdotal "evidence" in the form of a friend who used to be a runner but can now hardly walk. Many people who run, don't know how to train properly. Every sport has its set of injuries & this is why those of us who compete, know that we must train our entire body to withstand the rigours of our specific sport, or else we won't last in it.
45
@Mithu
Aspiring Olympic runners are not training to have long careers in the sport. They are training to peak for specific years and specific events and sacrificing aspects of their physical and mental health in order to make that happen.
Nike's training was tough - there's no question. However, other women made it through and got faster. It didn't work for Mary Cain and after 6 years she decided to try something else - good for her. However, to frame this as an abuse/victim scenario is beyond absurd.
1
This clearly is due to patriarchal arrogance and White privilege mixed together.
6
This sounds like an abusive husband scenario. Plays out just the same. And I've heard another ex-runner refer to herself as a "bait dog" once she dropped out of the top tier, just to live in service to the elite. What these coaches are allowed to do to our girls is horrifying.
289
The silence from Galen and Mo is deafening.
19
Imagine what PRE or Bowerman would say...
3
Why are we encouraging women to be like men? Being on the flamethrowers! I'm ready!
4
It doesn’t make any sense to me that the coaches would make Cain eat less and less as it seems that dieting correlated directly in her being a lower performing runner. I applaud her opening up; her analysis of the sex difference is from direct experience.
17
Don't trust your body or your soul to corporate America. If "corporations are people, my friends!", they're mean, self-centered people (like our president) who are willing to ruin others in their quest for success.
31
This is cruel, absurd, and makes no sense from a training standpoiint. The Oregon Project doesn't take on overweight athletes.
1
I will never by a product from nike again.
13
It is shocking that the coaches in the athletic world are so backward in their scientific knowledge. Fat as an endocrine organ, regulates a myriad of hormonal cascades. When you start reducing food intake, your system panics trying to establish equilibrium to ensure it has energy stores. Such anorexic girls cannot menstruate and worse, their bone marrow will synthesize fat instead of bone. Imagine a young girls bones full of fat, prone to fractures. This whole toxic culture of abnormal thin has got to stop. Folks need to look at survival from heart attacks, boy the slightly plump survive so much better. We don’t need to eat in a crazy fashion, but surely, we must allow ourselves and our children to eat what their bodies are crying out for. What is the point in admiring athletes if we seek to, as a society, wantonly also endanger their health?
20
I think its positive that after incorrectly telling her story a few years back..the NY Times is now telling the real story. Will there be measures put in place that correct that in the future?
9
Not trying to defend anything or anyone, but you can't call something an OpEd that was created, written and produced by anyone other than the subject. This piece is more a negative reflection on the Times for allowing journalistic integrity to completely fly out the window than on anyone else. I have worked in journalism for 15 years and this makes me cringe more for the way it's told and presented than for the subject matter itself. And it absolutely breaks my heart that a publication as far-reaching as the NYT fails to honor its responsibility as a source of truth, and instead chooses to succumb to sensationalist headlines and out-of-context soundbites to fill out its programming.
9
I'm SO GLAD that this subject is finally coming up in the media!!! This is a long time coming. I've written a story on my own blog about my experience with Hypothalamic Amenorrhea and RED-S as a collegiate and professional beach volleyball athlete.
https://www.kamilatan.com/post/the-ultimate-body-mind-soul-disconnect-my-experience-with-hypothalamic-amenorrhea-and-red-s
So many women don't know the power and the importance of having a healthy menstrual cycle. It's time for us to start talking about this. Men in athletic communities should know about this too.
24
"A big part of this problem is that women and girls are being forced to meet athletic standards that are based on how men and boys develop.
If you try to make a girl fit a boy’s development timeline, her body is at risk of breaking down. "
So does that mean boys are also being asked to slim down?
If so, that would greatly change the narrative of "evil men trying to control girl's bodies".
6
This sounds like the US Gymnastic Association and Dr. Nasser, lording over these girls that they have to do these things or else, be quiet about it, and that they are lucky to be able to participate in this Nike program. Were the males treated that way?
I don’t understand how the parents are not having more honest and effective communication with their children, but instead are too focused on athletic success over well-being.
This is another example where a lack of gender and racial diversity in leadership leads to singular, uniformed male group think and a lack of critical thinking and analysis.
I applaud this young for woman speaking her truth , and I am continually amazed how men at every level seem to have no second thoughts about treating women like second class human beings in the workplace, in educational settings, based on religion and on and on.
20
So sad. Another story of objectification of women and women athletes in this case.
Competing at the highest level is very hard work, no doubt, but it should be a joy, not a torture, especially not when the imposed regimen is completely misguided as this article demonstrates.
Hoping these women athletes find back their health and confidence, and choose their destiny as opposed to being the puppet of apprentice sorcerers and at the mercy of cruel commercial interests.
5
The Adidas stable of tennis coaches didn't have a very good track record, either, if memory serves.
3
Runners at an elite level, and athletes in general, don't always achieve their true potential by making these extreme sacrifices. They get injured physically, psychologically and emotionally. Athletic sacrifices towards elite perfomance are their in time, energy, social engagement, and having to make balanced nutritional choices to be the most fit they can be with amazing results - it doesn't have to be this extreme. When we talk about Mary's best moments, would we talk about Mary's Nike experience or would we talk about her time during her high school career? We may never know what Mary could have achieved. For every athlete like Mary we hear about, there are many others living the same "dream" every day. Clearly the system, and the logic behind it, is flawed
I support you Mary and good luck on your journey to be the best version of you!
15
This is a very talented and motivated young woman who is clearly capable of running at an elite level. Very early on she obviously developed a love of running commensurate with her physical abilities. She deserves to be well-trained and nurtured.
Yes, athletes at that level are expected to make "sacrifices" required for the single-minded commitment to their endeavor. For young athletes, this usually means time spent with family and friends, hanging out, not being a slave to diet, sleeping in, take a back seat (or are often eliminated entirely) to relentless devotion to training. It should not include doing damage, possibly irreparable, to bodies that are still developing. No young woman should cease menstruation for any prolonged time, or endure so many broken bones, as part of this "sacrifice."
Clearly, based on performance measures alone, there was something wrong with whatever training program Mary was being subjected to. Any even merely competent coach/trainer, let alone the so-called elite Alberto Salazar, could and should have seen that and worked with Mary to find out what was going wrong and take necessary steps to fix it, even if that meant finding a better program and coach.
I sincerely hope that Mary will recover, find or develop a training program that will support her running, and return to racing. And when the time comes, I hope that she will consider becoming a coach for women athletes.
20
Some of us was wondering what happened to you; nice to hear you are on the mend. Go to Iten, Kenya an get some advice from Brother Colm and stay for a while to get some perspective.
9
This is a sad story and I admire the courage of Ms. Cain to open up, and left that chapter behind her. Best of luck to her future endeavor.
Shame on Nike's declining to comment and I hope the anti doping agency truly honors its own words to investigate every athlete trained under Alberto Salazar.
15
What a sick, demented, predatory, avarice driven society we have become.
MB
14
Men and women are biologicaly different. That is a proven scientific common knowledge to all. Female elete athletes forced to lose weight will suffer much severe long consequence when their bodies fail to produce enough estrogen. After women give birth when a sudden drop in estrogen happens to their bodies, the symptom is postpartum depression. Forcing female athletes under goes such severe weight loss results in the same effect, as in Mary Cain's situation, broken bones and depression.
Salazar should not be allowed to return as coach for Nike. Consumers should not patronise Nike until it stops the practice of using young athletes for name recognition and financial gain. In future it should use its world fame as a company with strong business ethics, try donate shoes to poor people in the world.
7
Do not take advice from trainers. They have meager medical training. Talk to your doctor.
12
Money vs Performance. She made the decision herself and chose Money. Now she is blaming Nike for paying her? It's just a lame excuse. Period.
You were a star athlete wth the support the other athletes can only dreamed of. Now it's everyone else's fault but not yours, huh?
7
I hope Mary Cain can make a comeback; she is a great talent. Besides the points that she makes in the video, keep in mind that Mary Cain turned pro after high school. Most elite women runners go through the NCAA process to build themselves up. I suspect her decision to skip this step turned out to contribute to both physical and mental vulnerability.
5
Now do ballet.
6
We've heard so many horror stories about coaches from verbal to physical and sexual abuse. That parents still trust their children's safety to these psychos is mind-boggling.
4
While women like Mary Cain need to train at the highest level, with appropriate nutrition, it sounds like like Nike insists that its female athletes be skinny like fashion models for its ads. Shame on Nike.
10
The problem here does not lie entirely with Nike. Mary and her family should all have known abetter. Mary is equally guilty of burning herself out.
9
I've been employed at numerous engineering firms near the Nike campus. One on the same block, another where we rent some of the campus buildings to Nike.
I've always found Nike employees a little too precious. A little too good for others.
I once received a "freebie" handed out at a local road running event. It was a white bandana, square, with a small black Nike swoosh in the center. The bandana had a retail tag affixed. The tag stated (paraphrased to the best of my recollection) "This garment has been engineered for the demands of athletic use". Engineered? It was a dang bandana. White cotton with a stenciled logo. Engineered?
That pretty well sums up Nike for me. I have never by choice worn anything of Nike, and I never will.
Thank you Ms. Cain, and good for you to air this sham of an athletic program.
14
Bring back girdles.
NOT.
Men feel the same pain.
This is just horrible. How can they do such a thing to a great athlete, just insane ?
Male and female bodies are entirely different. To implement same rules is quite silly. It is outrageous that a top international company doesn’t even have nutritionists and psychologists for athletes.
It’s very sad that no proper medical research is done keeping female anatomy in mind. Mostly the research is based on male anatomy and as such same medicines are prescribed for both men and women, which is wrong.
This whole business of sports has become dope oriented since too much of money and fame is at stake. Majority escape and few people get caught. As such sports has finally become a blame game and no longer a sport. What a shame !
Each and every athlete must be subjected to vigorous dope testing before participating in any international event without mercy and offending athletes and their coaches must be banned for life.
1
seems very much like how we treat our Thoroughbred race horses.
Horrifying
7
A very compelling and important story well told by Mary Cain. As a former distance runner (before my knees went) I know the pain of this determination and lifestyle. An abusive coach would make it unbearable.
3
Congratulations to this brave woman for shining a light for all those young women who are still struggling to be 'perfect' in ways that damage both their health and their self-esteem. Your courageous words will change lives, Mary Cain. You bring love and hope to us all.
11
Mary’s story brought me to tears. I too was a high performance athlete for my entire adolescence and early adulthood. I too was a young female athlete who had only male coaches. And I too was abused and eventually irreparably broken by the system. I would love to say that Mary’s experience is uncommon, but I know so many fellow female athletes whose sport careers ended not because they lacked the talent (in most cases the exact opposite) but because their talent could not surmount being physically and/or emotionally destroyed by their coaches/governing sport bodies. Women who dealt with eating disorders, substance abuse, self-harm depression, suicidal ideation and anxiety as a direct result of their coaching environments. For teams like Nike’s Oregon training project, where the money is tied to medals and the goal is to win - coaches and support staff are given complete immunity to behave however they want as long as some of their athletes are champions. I know more deserving people who never got to be Olympian’s because of circumstance’s like Mary’s than deserving people who did. Similarly to how we have seen the veil be pulled back on Hollywood, I believe the world of high performance sport is rife with egregious conduct that would not be tolerated in any other workplace. But for some reason those in positions of power turn a blind eye to the casualties as long as someone is bringing home the gold.
27
Thank you, Mary Cain, for speaking out. You are brave. Shining a light on this abuse will protect other girls who love the sport and just want to be the best they can be.
11
Bodies change during adolescence. There is no guarantee that the best teenage athlete will be the best athlete in prime adulthood, especially in a sport with literally millions of competitors and with performance differences measured in hundredths of a second. Early bloomers fade and attention turns to late bloomers. It's not injustice, it's life.
7
There’s not living up to your potential...and there’s being driven so hard and feeling so unsafe to fight back that you stop menstruating. Not the same thing.
10
Overweight male athletes are encouraged (tolerated) and perform at the highest levels only in Sumo, certain (US) football positions, weight-lifting and perhaps a few other sports.
Why would anyone expect it to be different for elite female athletes?
6
Because overweight male athletes are only encouraged in sports where excess weight is advantageous.
6
The good news is that boys never wash out. Boy athletes don't feel the same pressure. Is that what you're saying? Because it sounds ridiculous. Must everything be seen through the divisive lenses of gender and race?
13
Nike if you can’t just do it, why do it sub-par? Nike had an unsupervised, unprofessional man running the “best” woman’s running program in the country. Not the best nutritionists, the best sports psychologists, the best trainers, best assistant coaches, nope, not the best of anything. As someone who has watched MSU’s horrific failures, this story tells me a lot about the culture of Nike; lack of rigor, lack of standards and sexism. Nike, you prove repeatedly that you have a problem with half of the population. Get it together, just do it!
20
Largely a moot point anyway, by now. The headline should more relevantly read, "I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until LGBTQ Gender Dogma Became 'Science'".
8
The fact female atheletes who became mothers have been shown to have been paid less by Nike than males who became dads, even if the female stayed as great or became better after giving birth, and then reading of Mary Cain's experience just shows Nike isn't the great company if wants us to believe.
Hope more men and women who have had poor experiences with Nike or any other sports brand will speak up! After all Nike does encourage us to 'Just Do It' !
12
One thing I've noticed is how male athletes are essentially lauded for eating a lot whereas female athletes are shamed for over-eating.
Look at these two articles about Olympic swimmers:
Dara Torres
https://www.glamour.com/story/dara-torres-on-her-diet-her-gu
Note the focus on eating healthy foods such as meal replacement shakes, on working to not "eat a ton at dinner" and the emphasis on how Rice Krispies treats are "guilty pleasures" that she is supposed to consume in moderation.
Michael Phelps
https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-phelps-diet-for-the-rio-olympics-2016-8
Note the focus on how much he can pack away--chocolate chip pancakes, five-egg omelets, and whole pizzas. The tone of the article is one of gluttonous exultation.
The notion that female athletes are supposed to eat little to stay thin while male athletes are supposed to eat a lot to get strong has long been prevalent.
And it makes absolutely no sense!
27
@Heather
I think you may have missed the point that the dara torres article was when she continued to swim at an age considered old for the sport, so her body would have not been a calorie burning machine, even with training for competition.
When this was written about Phelps he was still at that age when even lethargic men are burning calories by just being alive, so his diet barely kept up with his training.
Apples and oranges
Nike threatened to move its headquarters out of Oregon and the legislature responded by showering Nike with a $2 billion tax break. Nike's athletes get "thinner, and thinner and thinner" while the wallets of its Execs get fatter and fatter and fatter. Sad.
17
I've disliked Nike and stopped buying any products with the Nike logo or anything endorsed by Nike since the Atlanta Falcons Michael Vick dog fighting scandal broke in 2007 (Vick had a contract with Nike). This gives me even more reason to dislike a corporate environment that supports of the abuse of young men and women.
7
Time to call out Nike. While we're at it, let's revisit their partnership with and exploitation of Colin Kaepernick's specious, opportunistic woke campaign, which has done so much damage to the cultural discussion in this country and set back the Black cause more than people want to admit. Triggered by Betsy Ross Flag sneakers... So outrageous it's a real-life SNL skit.
5
We applaud you for taking stand!
This article and video are damning. The photo stills of her 18 seconds in and at 1:45 clearly show someone who just doesn’t look healthy; she’s borderline emaciated. I cried watching Mary compose herself when she shared about self-mutilation. How lonely, unhappy, and in despair she must have felt.
Maybe some of my fellow male readers are correct that this isn’t a gender issue but simply one of elite sports within our culture - I think of Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, and Penn State. Or anytime a prominent male college athlete is accused of rape.
But it does seem that when a prominent man has authority over girls and young women in sports - I think of Larry Nassar - the systemic abuse is severe, deep, and covered up for a long time.
I’m so grateful for her courage to speak up and this article. And I’m grateful that reader Judy Simms-Cendan MD, whose comment was highlighted, will share it with her patients.
Bravo, Mary.
17
Reading this caused me to reflect on the outstanding job the parents of Serena and Venus Williams did in protecting their kids from the worst aspects of "Big Money" sports.
11
I believe Mary Cain.
16
this problem was endemic in some (most?) collegiate cross country programs in the 90s and probably still is--weighing in front of the team, shaming, obsession with weight loss rather than performance. sounds like Alberto Salazar went to major extremes, but the same attitude is common in track/XC and the saddest part is that athletes who would never have competed professionally have lifelong problems with body image, eating disorders, and other health issues
6
Too many young athletes at every level are overtraining. Too many young women are being taught that success equals skinny. Too many young people are hearing the message that they have to be professionals. They don't get to play. Or try new things. Of course, repetitive motion injuries and eating disorders are happening. When are we, the adults, going to let them play?
10
I'm glad Ms. Cain has come forward with her story. Perhaps it's time we look at the concepts inherent in "winning" above all else and ponder whether this extremism is even conducive to a healthy human life. Our cultural obsession with being #1 and "the best" is an interesting phenomenon that has baffled me for years. Why do we get so passionate about competition in the first place? Why do we throw so much money at systems (sports, contests, races...) that exaggerate and glorify the fleeting experience of being on top of the heap. Call me philosophical, or just dang tired of all the hyperbole, but I sure wish we could advance as a culture to put competition into better perspective and to develop other meaningful values in life like community, equity, wisdom and health.
7
This is an awful story, but please do not leverage this as a gender issue. Everyone from travel teams to big time collegiate athletics prey on young talent, dangling things that should be a right — like the chance to attend college, in exchange for everything they have. And somehow everyone gets rich but the athletes. Every young athlete should start from the premise that the coaches, agents, scouts, and schools simply do not care about them. They’re using them. If you do that, it makes the analysis much easier.
10
Nike is synonymous with winning and success. Neither the article nor the video explains why Nike would foster and perpetuate such a flawed and failed system for their female athletes. Some commenters have suggested Nike and their personnel were acting out of misogyny. That sounds awfully cynical and nonsensical. Mary Cain's story needs more transparency - on both sides.
2
Mary, I've watched you as a little girl on the soccer field, as a young girl swimming a grueling 200 meter on the swim team, and then take off like a rocket on the track. I was thrilled to hear you joined the Nike Project and so disheartened to learn of your coach's issues when you came home. I applaud you for coming forward with your story. It broke my heart to read how you suffered.
So, Nike, you have nothing to say? I'm a big customer and I will tell everyone I know NOT to support Nike going forward.
The terrible things that have come out about women's sports across the board in the last few years has blown my mind. Pay disparity, sexual abuse, etc etc. But this story is personal and truly heartbreaking. This is 2019! You better wise up. And, Mary, I wish you every success on the track and off it.
25
The pressure on American women and girls to be thin is vicious and unrelenting. That they are not nuts about being thin is one of the things I like about the Women’s soccer team.
8
I think this goes beyond misogyny. As soon as you have a major corporation like Nike involved, you're talking about the entire dog-eat-dog capitalistic economic system. Survival of the fittest, so to speak, but, as Mary Cain's story attests, only in a most perverse way.
3
I am a 71 yo athlete who rediscovered competition when I was in my mid-fifties and I got sucked into winning. This led to a variety of injuries and a couple of surgeries. The last few years I have returned to competing and have thoroughly enjoy myself. What is different is not my effort, it is my understanding that the purpose of sport is really to have fun. Each athlete has to be able to define their own limits. They need to challenge them, of course. That is the root of improvement. Coaches at all levels need to understand that their personal success is not the key objective, it is to teach each athlete to work to achieve his or her success whether on the track or in life. I wish Mary Cain the best. I remember well watching her compete as a high school runner and the abject joy she showed in competing. I hope she is able to rediscover that joy. Thank you.
7
How many nefarious practices at Nike must be revealed before they lose their market share? How much abuse must others endure before we all refuse to support the company? How many people must be sacrificed before the rest of us simply stop buying Nike products? How much is enough to say ENOUGH?
7
Really silly for any athlete to listen to coaches when it comes to best nutritional practices. I abandoned team sports after meeting a parade of incompetent coaches--when I was a kid they refused to let us DRINK WATER in the broiling August sun at football practice. That's why I ditched football. Mary, question and buck coaches and all authority figures when your gut--in this case truly your gut--senses error. You be your lifetime handler.
8
Something has gone terribly wrong here with the way we CARE for athletes. Some of the great coaches during my lifetime produced winning individuals, teams and winning people. Nike put its name on this and Nike has to own it. Shameful.
3
How disgusting is this culture that destroys athletes, women in particular in this case. I have heard of an Olympic swimmer, also a women, that was forced to lift weights and build up muscle. She ultimately fell apart and never went to the Olympics. Then there was the high school soccer star that got a free ride at a big college. She was bullied, forced to run until she threw up and finally quit the team. That coach was a women who did the bullying. Shame on these coaches that seem to have something to prove and abuse their athletes and we haven't even mentioned sexual harassment.
9
Ironic the best female gymnast ever has curves.
6
I'm glad Mary Cain spoke out. Yes, when a coach's direction of restricted diet causes brittle bones and arrested development the coaching is wrong. Cessation of menstruation points to arrested development in a teen. We don't know whether this same extreme of setting unhealthy nutritional goals has occurred to male athletes under Nike coaching, though it's a plausible, even a likely explanation the author Mary Cain offers, that Nike's goals were patterned for males and inappropriate for females.
4
Mary Cain I believe you, as I ran on a college team and witnessed similar practices. I wish you the best as you train, and regain your physical and mental health back. I look forward to seeing you run in races to come.
6
Fat male athletes are encouraged (tolerated) only in Sumo, certain (US) football positions, and weight-lifting.
Why would anyone expect it to be different for elite female athletes?
4
@Mon Ray
The very BIG difference is that Mary was never "fat," in any sense of the word. She was a lean, fit, super elite athlete whose coach expected her to become "thinner and thinner and thinner," to the point of being emaciated.
11
Nike is a fashion company, not a sports company. Its literally one of the biggest “big lie” purveyors on earth. They produce more waste than anyone from their shoes. All those technical fabrics inhale potable water in their manufacture. Nothing they make lasts longer than three months.
A juggernaut that, in reality, is just a marketing machine.
People who work there are bright, optimistic, believe they are living and supporting healthy lifestyles...but really they just make landfill. You can’t actually recycle or upcycle a nike product.
Livin’ the big lie that is all fashion.
8
Well I certainly hope all the Democrat Presidential Candidates make this their single most important issue of their campaign. If not now when..? If not them who?
1
@Aaron Or maybe Melania will take up the cause. Why should it be a partisan issue?
2
@Aaron
I am waiting for the Stable Genius to weigh in via Twitter with his unmatched wisdom on this issue, as he does on most things he knows nothing about.
2
Any idea of profit for Nike through this woman's life-damaging experience? How much did they gain, lose or project? Are they selling sports equipment, or wrecking lives?
2
“A big part of this problem is that women and girls are being forced to meet athletic standards that are based on how men and boys develop. If you try to make a girl fit a boy’s development timeline, her body is at risk of breaking down. That is what happened to Cain.”
Or, more precisely, females are not biologically built to be athletes, and that we force them into it at a levels sustainable by males (for political correctness) is sad.
2
I'd boycott Nike if I weren't already boycotting Nike.
10
Nike is the worst. Sweatshops. Exploiting children and athletes around the globe. Shady corrupt college deals. I grew up idolizing Nike as a kid; Now that i am older, I despise all they stand for. Truly horrifying. Greed personified.
7
Until we as a society speak out against these atrocities against women, athletes included, many women will lose their lives to severe eating disorders.
My stepdaughter was healthy, strong & robust until the age of 17 when she fell under the control of a narcissistic abuser. Nothing her father or I said would get through to her. She married this evil man and because of his continued abuse & mental torture, she severed her relationship with her family and almost lost her life when her heart failed. She weighed 57 lbs at the time. That was 3 years ago. She finally got the courage to end her marriage but continues fighting the demons he's left behind. He's convinced friends she's crazy & has said; nobody will believe you because I'm a cop.
I've seen coaches mentally destroy athletes, in much the same way when all the athletes want to do is please the coach & succeed. Body shaming is a horrific thing to do anyone but is especially harmful to young growing girls. The athletic culture starts when girls are very young, impressionable & extremely vulnerable. We must be vigilant, watch & listen for clues that eating patterns have changed & speak out when something is questionable. Having had experience counseling teens with anorexia/bulimia,
I believe Registered dietitians/nutritionists should be working together with coaches to achieve the goals of healthy eating & performance & 'weigh ins' are dangerous & should be banned. Body weight is not indicative of athleticism.
8
I am hoping Mary Decker Slaney does an op-ed on this since she was a similar young prodigy; was great, disappeared and came back, disappeared and came back again.
7
Interesting to read comments from men explaining how this isn't a gender issue. I like that as much as I like when white people explain to African Americans what is, and isn't, a race issue.
17
Not buying any more Nike products until they change their approach to women athletes. I need new running shoes and they won’t be Nikes.
2
She did not demonstrate enough hunger. It’s one thing to be the leader in the Midwest or for that matter, the USA; it is another to be truly world class in track and field.
1
Starving yourself to become a better athlete, whether you're male or female, is always wrong. If you are following a correct eating regimen, you will need more calories from fats and carbs than a non-athlete. The coaches in charge appear to have no idea of what good nutrition is. It sounds to me that they are slaves to the mass-marketing of big corporations like Nike, that are pushing extra-lean bodies as ideal for everyone. This is no surprise, but it would be far healthier to find what works best with each athlete, and develop her potential based not upon her looks, but on her performance.
14
This pressure on girls and women to be thinner and thinner has been going on for a long time. It is well-documented in the ballet and modeling world. We women need to rise up and make it stop. Now is the time!
42
Nike needs to hire a powerful, intelligent woman like Mary Cain to reform their team and company. It is shocking that she did not have access to a nutritionist or sports psychologist. I admire Mary for sharing her story and seeking change.
110
@Lisa ?
She's a 23 yr old who knows nothing about life.
3
She is such an amazing young athlete. Her performances were breathtaking. To see all of that exuberance and promise undermined by a cabal of arrogant, callous men at Nike is infuriating. Ms.Cain appears resolute and resilient. Sad that she’s had to endure this, but hopeful that she and other women can force the charge necessary. Thank you Ms. Cain for making this public stand. Maybe we need to push back on Nike as consumers. Let them know we expect more from them.
67
BRAVE BRAVE BRAVE!!!
8
Bravo Mary!!! I was the first female coach of an all boys team in Cupertino Ca because I was supported by a FEMALE athletic director. I had to maker winners and that team was 18-1 which established credibility and still the men coaches were degrading and rude to me and my team. When girls season came there were a few more female coaches of the girls, but still over 70% men and I was shocked to see how the men called these student athletes 'honey and sweetheart' sexualizing their coaching. We need female coaches of both sexes because there are many woman who are more than capable of producing winning teams. Less than 5% of college coaches of female teams are woman, this needs to be addressed by the college board members to help woman achieve all they can.
61
Girls and boys need to be trained in early childhood that when they are confronted with dysfunction and toxicity in expectations or behavior, they SPEAK OUT and get themselves OUT, in anyway possible....BEFORE the body or mind or spirit breaks down. AND...WHERE were her parents in all this?
4
This caption is under the main title of the article:
"Mary Cain’s male coaches were convinced she had to get “thinner, and thinner, and thinner.” Then her body started breaking down."
Where does it say the coaches became convinced of anything? All the article says is that they undertook to convince HER, often resorting to coercion. There is nothing in the article saying they had any real convictions other than that a) they had power over her, and b) she was trapped. Saying the "coaches were convinced" on some level imputes good faith/intentions or sincerity to them, and there is no particular evidence in that direction.
Just because someone wields power or authority doesn't mean they should be given the benefit of the doubt. That is a big part of the problem. If you didn't notice, it's an issue in our presidential politics.
4
My friend was once her coach. He's mentioned in the article. He would never, ever say to an athlete that they needed to be thinner, thinner , thinner. We hear, routinely that female athletes are told to be thinner, thinner, thinner. Gymnastics is a prime example. Track another. As a runner, but certainly far from an elite athlete, I know the place that weight plays in performance. I've been accused, years ago of being anorexic until my co=workers saw the voluminous quantity of food I'd eat while marathon training. Regardless of what level one competes, female athletes are consumed by the weight factor. I feel for Mary. I wish she could have been squired along by Ed. He'd never have risked her health for performance. I'm glad she's got her head on straight at this point and I hope she can find the joy in running, just running. Long live the "H". Love you Ed.
4
You were brave to speak out. This sounds like elite training for female gymnasts and skaters. Every human is unique and a “one size fits all” training program does not make sense, particularly when your body is still developing. Thanks for this enlightening article and video.
5
It would appear that the training Ms. Cain describes was not based on the latest medical and scientific best practices for women athletes, but more likely on the personal experience that Mr. Salazar accumulated from his highly successful competitive career. The idea suggested by some that Ms. Cain just wasn't willing to make the sacrifice required of world-class runners seems ludicrous. Clearly the Salazar formula was a failure for her, considering she was already a world-class runner when she joined the program.
There are similar examples of questionable training for women athletes coming to light, such as rhabdomyolysis, a potentially severe syndrome caused by muscle damage after over-training. This year the University of Houston is adding sports medicine staff to better monitor training practices in response to several women athletes needing hospital care for this condition. I doubt Ms. Cain would suggest female athletes shouldn't be pushed to their limits, but I would argue trainers and coaches should not be ignorant of what those safe limits are.
13
thank you for telling your story. you are a wonderful in so many ways!
8
The NOP project's approach obviously worked for some of their athletes, since it had so many champion runners. Clearly, it was very unhealthy for Mary and everyone now wishes she (and her parents) had made the decision to get out sooner.
1
Strong, athletic males and females are not thin. They are tone but not thin. True athletes train to build muscle in addition to stamina and their skill/speed/accuracy. True athletes and trainers know athlete's bodies need to be fed proper nutrition, usually consuming many calories a day. Breaking bones, missing menstrual cycles is an indicator that a body is not by nourished.
15
@Anne Cunningham Distance runners only look thin from the outset, but when they start running you see their strength. This strength cannot be achieved without proper training. As for breaking bones, athletes like Deena Kastor have broken bones because, in her specific case, applying sun screen prevented the absorption of Vitamin D; she has a Hx of bouts with skin cancer. She is one of the professional athletes who have had a long and consistent career because she is healthy, hard working and determined (and talented).
1
From experience, this is fairly common among elite male runners as well.
2
Regarding the menstrual cycle, that you so casually dismiss, the absence of it can be an indication the body is unhealthy and therefore unlikely to be in a position to compete. The hormone estrogen, produced during the cycle is vital to a women's health and when its high at certain times during the cycle it increases energy and the body is able to work harder and endure more pain. It also helps Muscle tissue to repair quicker which is important for athletes while training. It's our testosterone. Another aspect of the cycle is an increase in appetite in response to an increased basal metabolic rate. Its normal for women to need more food at certain times of the cycle. There has been very little research done on women's health and how it differs from men's health. It's only recently women are talking more about what they need and how the menstrual cycle impacts their health.
So, for you to be an authority on its value to a female athlete, is really dim on you part.
12
Dr. Rose Frisch researched and documented all this in the 1970’s at Harvard School of Public Health
1
My heart breaks for these young women who have foregone so much of their young lives to devote themselves to athletic achievement and then to be abused — mostly by male coaches — by being told they must be thinner, thinner, thinner! Where are they supposed to get the energy needed to train and participate in their sports? Why aren’t there more women involved in coaching teams? I used to be a figure skating fan-atic, but watching so many fit, talented, beautiful young women starve themselves, I can barely watch competitions now.
9
Welcome to world competition. I’ve worked out with Olympic wrestlers, and the training is intense from 5am to 8pm. Making weight is half of their life. Anyone watch Michael Phelps consume 4000 calorie meals 3 times a day? Joe Thomas of the Browns lost over 100 lbs the year after he retired. At over 300 lbs he a hall of famer, at 220 he’s just a normal guy. Lebron James spends a million bucks a year on diet, training, and lugging a hyperbolic chamber around to heal after workouts and games. It’s a commitment not all athletes are willing to make. It’s their choice.
1
I feel that it is very hard to take a single side and stance. After recently retiring from my XC and track career at a D1 program, I can relate to the matter all too much. Our program was equally coached by men and women, but our distance program was led by a female. Not only did she promote an eating disordered team (when teammates noticeably lost weight and did well she would encourage us to do the same as well) but the athletics program failed to provide adequate help to those seeking it for their eating disorders. Half of the traveling squad perpetually battled stress fractures, many of us suffered with amenorrhea, and athletes were forced to run races through illnesses (a teammate and I ran races with pneumonia, warranting a trip to the ER for me right after). There were also boys who were forced to weigh in and battled eating disorders and stress fractures as well. The theme across many programs nationwide is that you are owned by them, and that you perform for them.
The point I am trying to get across here is that while yes, Cain was coached by an extremely abusive and all male staff, the issue lies beyond just sex. Coaches need to be trained on how the human body truly works, and how best to encourage growth of healthy athletes. Both males and females can be treated equally while understanding that their bodies are not the same in every respect. Athletes should not have to sacrifice their mental and physical health for the success of their programs.
22
There's another to blame here: all of us. All of us who watch sports for entertainment, who enjoy seeing elite athletes push then pass beyond the limits of the human body. And it comes at a high cost that we're willing to ignore. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy in football players and boxers. Life altering injuries in gymnastics. Not to mention extreme sports. Heck, legend of the first marathon has it the Greek messenger died upon arrival. There will always be crazy athletes who will do anything to reach beyond the top. Barring that, perhaps we all need to consume less entertainment with such high human capital cost.
5
Reading this just made me furious. A life messed up, and an athlete's career ruined. If she was running so very well already, her body, and her food intake was just fine. This is who she was / is. What an absolute shame. We are all created different, what works for one may not be the same for another. And a bunch of men deciding what kind of body this wonderful girl / woman should have, to run better when she was already amazing, and more importantly, happy, truly disgusts me. Run with joy Mary Cain.
10
I'm a woman in my 20s who has run at both the high school and collegiate level and have witnessed many prodigal young women lose their running careers, college offers, and confidence to RED-S. Most of my coaches have been male and, fortunately, very attuned to the physical and psychological complexities of this issue.
I can't help but notice that most of the people refuting this article's "gender claim" are men. How can you truly understand the complex power dynamic between young female athletes and their male coaches if you've never witnessed it firsthand? Yes, both male and female athletes runners struggle with RED-S, but the statistics demonstrate that the victims are overwhelmingly female.
Even without these statistics: the institution of competitive running is historically male-dominated and thus will inherently perpetrate gendered power dynamics, many of those targeting young prodigies such as Cain who bear the burden of not just breaking records, but proving her worth and ability in a field that historically values male bodies over female ones.
25
I played some sports in HS & college; I'm male.
There are more issues than men vs women here, but it certainly seems counterproductive to have a significant athletic program without female staff, If the program includes female athletes.
There are some coaches (and managers) who are so focused on 'performance' that they forget/neglect/ignore the entire continuum of experience concerning satisfaction/fun/accomplishment apart from 'win/lose'.
Related is the concept of discipline absent a path/practice to follow (disciples are followers; their path oft involves past personal experience, and inspiration from other's experience).
I had two team mates in high school sports. One played football at 180 Lbs, wrestled at 158 Lbs, and ran cross country (don't know his weight then, but probably below 160). He was the ideal adaptable team player (later co-captained West Point football).
My other friend played football about 185, and also attempted to wrestle about 170. He was a talented athlete
(did well in tennis during spring), but the diet (weightloss) completely sapped his strength & speed... so was not a 'good' wrestler.
I attempted to gain weight for football, and lose weight for wrestling, and failed at dieting-- so I played at what i weighed, which was pretty constant at football, wrestling and polevaulting.
* *
There are some coaches like Seahawks' Pete Carroll...
who can inspire guys to play a tough contact sport, without being mean/desperate; they enjoy it.
1
Apparently, neither the coaches nor the sponsors value the health of the athletes. We see this in men's as well as women's sports--even in horse racing, where the unfortunate animals must be destroyed on a pretty regular basis due to injuries incurred because of "win at all costs" attitudes.
The young people involved are being used and abused by older people who have financial interest in their winning, not in their health or their futures. Thus we have doping, unreasonable weight goals, over training, brain injuries, etc. And the young ones learn too late that they must live with their broken, abused bodies, some of which will never recover. The entire system needs re-thinking with a keen focus on what exactly we truly value.
5
Youth sports is troubled. Most parents don’t know how to properly advocate for their child and who doesn’t enjoy seeing their child excel at something? Just like basically everything in life, you need a cautious eye and the ability to ask questions every at every step.
9
Nicely done. We have doubled the population of the Earth in a very short period and promoted national economies that previously had no access. In short order we have constituencies to support diverse needs and previously "unique" cases. Why are 50% of the world still left without management representation in American professional atheletics?
1
What's particularly important about this piece and the video is that it can serve many other present and future athletes. Perhaps only one or several will realize that they need to make sure they don't sacrifice their physical and emotional health because of a coach. Young athletes need to make sure that they have several adults who are aware of how they feel, how they are coping with stress, etc.
2
I don't understand the coaches trying to get thinner and thinner athletes. Just look at Serena Williams -- perhaps the best athlete ever. She is good because she is powerful and healthy.
I know it's a different sport, but still I would think your body would naturally conform to the demands of the sport. (where it adds muscles etc)
19
Male athletes have to deal with the same thing, much worse in fact. I would encourage anybody who disagrees to watch the horrifying but exhilarating show 'Friday Night Tykes' where grade school boys playing football are encouraged to hit their opponents in the head without caring if they cause a concussion or not. Sports are often a brutal form of competition that men have always been made to view as a critically important measure of their manhood.
Imagine if this same article was written about male athletes getting weighed regularly and being forced to lose weight. It would not generate anywhere near the same amount of outrage. The men in the article would not be hailed as brave heroes. They would most likely be the laughingstock of the entire running community.
Salazar's techniques that lead to this "controversy" in women's running are the same techniques he has been using for decades on male athletes. They have won him and his athletes multiple Olympic medals.
There is nothing wrong with Mary Cain choosing to prioritize her health over her athletic performance. But it's not fair to frame this as an inflammatory story of gendered abuse.
2
@Daniel Metz I have watched Friday Night Tykes, I know absolutely nothing of American Football.
However, I know your comment was about a lot more than this one statement, "There is nothing wrong with Mary Cain choosing to prioritize her health over her athletic performance" but if she didn't make sure she was healthy first, she would not BE an athlete in the sport of running. No professional runner who has had a long and consistent career has deprived their body of the essentials (apart from the actual running - rest, recovery and food) for the sake of an image of what a runner "looks" like.
I'm glad that Mary Cain is speaking out and I hope she makes a stunning comeback under a coach who doesn't treat her like a "product." She is a person and an athlete.
9
@Mithu I agree with almost everything you said and I also should say that I applaud Mary Cain for coming forward. Doing so is brave and I hope it encourages more athletes to do the same. A conversation about the damage that young people go through for very fleeting athletic success is long overdue in this country.
My issue is more that this conversation seems to be framed around the fact that Mary Cain is a woman who is being abused by older men. This is undeniably true, but focusing on it in this context means missing the fact that boys are subject to the same (or worse) treatment when they participate in sports. Men will also have much more difficulty coming forward about these issues.
This story seems to only see female victims. I would like to see Mary Cain's story encouraging btoh male and female athletes to come forward about the physical and emotional trauma that far too often comes with organized sports.
2
You do know that Salazar has been suspended for doping offences, right? Basically, every single successful athlete that he's trained is now under a cloud. These 'demon' coaches so often turn out to be less than revolutionary once they're put under the microscope.
3
I've read other accounts that male athletes are told to strength train to compensate for developing into adulthood, whereas female athletes are told to maintain their childhood weight at all costs, which is completely insane. We're still in the dark ages in so many ways.
13
Men turning into men makes us bigger and stronger; girls turning into women means less lean muscle because women need higher body fat to reproduce. It is simple biology.
All sports athletes engaged in at highly competitive levels are bad for their bodies. The damage done by sports football and boxing are just more obvious. It is sad that the win at all cost attitude has made sports no fun.
5
@William Case Winning is good.
However, winning "at all costs" ruins the sport and deters potential athletes from being introduced to it. This latter mentality also ruins the sport because it encourages dishonesty by putting pressure on the athlete to forsake their ethics in favour of a result mandated by a sponsor, coach or country.
As an athlete (and someone who is friends with many athletes, both - Open and Masters), I will politely but very firmly disagree with your quick and generalised judgement that all sports at highly competitive levels are bad for athletes' bodies.
@Jilanne
'...I hesitate to completely write off the points, made by many men here, that individuals including Cain are making these decisions to join elite clubs and train at this level, which comes at a high cost. This point is valid...'
I disagree. I do not think this point is valid. I do think it is the core of the problem and argument against athletes who speak out against abuse. I think the argument that 'the high cost of training at this level' involves enduring abuse leading to ptsd, self harm, emot/psych damage, suicidal thoughts is incorrect. None of those experiences has anything to do with sport.
Training at this level (I'm a 2 time Olympian and multi gold medalist) involves enduring the psychological, emotional and physiological strain and challenge inherent in sport - not imposed by a narcissistic or violent abuser.
We continually shame those who speak out against abuse by claiming they are not 'tough enough'. We glorify those who are tough enough to survive abuse. We even award them medals.
Ask anyone who has survived abuse, rape, torture, war, violence. They are not tough, they are survivors. They don't deserve a medal, they deserve our love, support, counsel.
Tough is what Mary Cain was as an athlete. She won medals for her performances as an athlete. She continues to be tough and courageous enough to speak out against abuse.
Broken is what she became and what you are asking her to be.
47
Perhaps the sport itself is the problem. I practice a distance sport where we are not expected to be thin. I kept inviting a neighbor to try it (paddle sports), but he was more interested in training for marathons. Now he is two knee surgeries later and can barely walk, and I am training, rotund belly and all, for open ocean 40+ mile races. The elites in this sport are not skinny either, and our training regimen requires a lot of eating. So, take a closer look at the sport of running, please. Perhaps it is to blame.
8
I was not shocked by Alberto's attitude. This is a man who was given last rites after a race, so clearly winning to him is worth risking life.
Nor, is it particularly shocking that female needs are not fully reflected in training. Most of our exercise science is built from data on men. Most of the coaches are men. Time for a change.
Not surprising either was the pressure on Mary to lose weight as it is well known that this is an issue in running and other sports (and clearly a more educated approach for both female and male atheletes is required if we are to keep our atheletes healthy).
What I did find profoundly disturbing and heart wrenching is that even after Mary showed clear signs of severe distress through her cutting, there was no effort to help her. To turn a blind eye to such pain is to lose
humanity. Sports should be about bringing forth what is best in us. Instead we have a culture that rewards the worst in us.
16
Nothing can change until we quit spending money on companies like Nike. Money talks.
14
very poignant article. i can see that some will disagree with some of the content, but i think just about everyone can agree that this woman's story shows some very dark forces that exist in the communities of elite athletes. i am glad she is bringing this to light in such an eloquent way. thanks to mary for having the courage to speak out with her story. winning should never be more important that making sure athletes are given the support needed to take care of themselves physically and mentally.
9
Although I can understand the sacrifices athletes have to make in order to win in their sport, men and women have to be trained differently. Biologically they are different and these coaches need to be more informed about their differences. Telling a woman that they need to become thinner instead of stronger is not right. Not only does low body fat percentage takes away their menstrual cycle, but this induces bone loss and fatigue. If they want women athletes to perform at their best, then they can't treat them the same as the male athletes.
5
This is just another example of a hyper-competitive culture in the US that drives people to extremes. But unlike hyper-competitive capitalism, people can simply opt out of extreme sports. Superior athletes drive themselves unmercifully (read Tom Brady's book "12" or study Nolan Ryan's pitching career and you will see people driving themselves to extremes, but maintaining their own control). It is much harder for youth with evolving senses of self control and self esteem to do the same.
7
@Mister Ed that's why a mentor, in the form of a coach, who sees your potential is so important. when these coaches become abusive, that sense of self is much harder to find.
1
I think Mary Cain would be a wonderful coach for elite women runners - she’s been there - done it - understands what it takes - and is fighting to make a difference in the sport - though she’s academically brilliant and has so many possibilities to have impacts in the world in many areas - I wish her the best!
11
@Russell luckily, she's not done with competing yet. I am excited for her comeback!
....this is a multi-sport problem and nationwide issue which begins in early high school. Ms. Cain is right!!!!
Wasn't it the original intention for the creation of all licensed institutions to support each member/citizen in their success, as opposed to using them (no what matter the cost) to advance the institutions cause. Wouldn't it be best for society if corporations & non profits received tax breaks only when they can show a larger commitment to the long-term interests of each of its member citizens and society as a whole. ie. women's issues, employment growth and stability, environmental stewardship, etc...? Society at an individual level overall is suffering.
4
Salazar and his protégés will be done after this, and they should be.
9
If Salazar really did recommend diuretics and birth-control pills that is phenomenally freakin crazy.
6
The key problem with this piece is that it fails to account for Mary Cain's willing participation in this program from 2013 until apparently this year when she realized her body couldn't handle it. Other women did not have the same problem.
Framing this as a "male coaches abuse female athletes" piece is dishonest. Cain was trying to be the best of the best, where, by definition, you test the limits of the human body.
Ryan Hall, a MALE american olympian, flamed out from over-training which destroyed his hormonal balance as well.
I think if anyone wants to have healthy hormone levels, a long healthy running career, and stable mental health, they should avoid trying to compete at the olympic level.
7
@Jeff
Testing the limits of the human body without adequate guidance about nutrition, psychology, or individual physiology is akin to dropping bombs without adequate guidance - not very effective and at times counterproductive.
6
Jeff—
Other women did have the problem. Did you read the story?
3
1. Ms Mary Cain I’m sorry to hear about the abuse that you endured while training with the Nike Oregon project under coach Alberto Salazar.
2. I’m not surprised about what you went through.
3. You probably are feeling very hopeful about your next chapter. You are 23 with your whole life in front of you. As you know there are many serious distance runners that run at the world class level way into their late 30s. You of course will surround yourself with a positive support system that will be looking out for your health and well being.
4. As a former athlete and a former coach I can definitely understand the mind set of having a very strong desire to get better, to shoot for PRs, to strive very hard to achieve goals. But at what cost??? Where does that athlete’s health come in? Well the athlete’s health should be number 1.
5. But there will always be those that push the limits and in order to achieve the ultimate goals they are willing to pay the ultimate price!!!!!
6. There are many parts of our society that encourage athletes and coaches to do whatever is necessary to achieve the bottom line---Olympic Gold Medals and World Records. Our society in many ways pushes our youth to be the best that they can be. That second place is not good enough and that they need to be willing to do anything in order to achieve their goal. That the Olympic Gold medal is the only medal and the winner of the Super Bowl is the only NFL team that counts.
3
Mike Craigie—
And the elite athletes who hope to improve rely on experts—coaches—to help them. However, it’s apparent not all coaches are experts or have the best interests of the individual athlete in mind. History is full of drivers who “rode their horses until they dropped.” It’s not the horse’s fault.
3
I wonder if we should be more careful about pushing young women so hard in systems built for men. Men and women do differ physiologically - women has reproductive cycles that men do not have. Perhaps, we need to take a look at women's colleges and see how they train athletes and expand from there.
4
I've seen the same thing taking place in ballet. You cannot develop strength and remain string thin, something has to give. I will be so glad when this current obsession with thinness passes and women can go back to looking normal!
21
To all the men making comments reflecting your anxiety and defensive whining. Yes, this is about some women and some male coaches and some regimens and some programs that are failing; it highlights the failure to recognize—or care—how a one-size-fits-all training does not fit all; it describes a young woman who hoped to fulfill a dream by joining an elite program sponsored by a corporation that backs winners at the cost of failures resulting from ignorance and bullying. This is the sad story of a young woman shoe-horned into a male narrative. It isn’t about all men or all coaches or all women. It is a cautionary tale. It could be about a wrestler or a football player, but it’s not. Stop trying to make it about you.
28
Awesome!
1
So brave and so sad. Mary Cain is a hero.
6
We need to stop worshipping professional athletics in this country and start holding the same amount of reverence for education.
I have nothing against sports, but the American obsession with them, and with winning them at all costs, is taking its toll on the athletes of this nation.
10
I have some trouble being fully sympathetic that Ms. Cain is a victim here. Athletes in many sports make choices as to how to maximize their ability to perform and with these choices come other consequences. I suspect the female body reproductive cycle in particular will be affected by training regimes in any sport that keep body fat at levels that are below average. We are becoming more aware of the long term risk of contact sports and that awareness should be a factor as young participants and their parents make decisions about which sports to pursue and how extensively to participate. It may be sad, but not tragic, if Ms. Cain did not fulfill her athletic potential but it is not the end of her life. It may say as much about the psychological mindset that drives individuals to become super achievers by equating their self worth with their victories.
7
I can understand how much more harmful this type training is for women than for men, but I would like to add that many (most?) training regimens for teenage athletes are borderline or exceeding harmful. Coaches often do not respect or allow athletes to listen to their unique bodies. Most endurance athletes need to do more core and strength training. Durability to race many races is sacrificed for a hundredth or thousandth of a second in a single race. Oddly enough at its core it is the same reason behind the recent problems with thoroughbred horses being so fragile and breaking down. It prioritizes immediate, fleeting success at the expense of long-term good and sustainability. (I guess this also applies to our irresponsible use of our natural resources - who cares what happens in 20-50 years, I have my money now.)
7
You are so brave. I admire you so. I'm so sorry this happened to you. I hope you'll begin a new chapter, as you say, which includes leading in the way you talked about more women needing to lead. You would be welcome among those female leaders. Your intimacy with the successes and the dark places would benefit so many young women, and give them a wholly new and healthy perspective. Thank you for speaking up. Like other readers, I run in Nike shoes. If it's one small thing I can do, I quit the shoes. I should have long ago, back when the NYTimes ran other disturbing reports about Nike's treatment of women, but this ... how can I not?
3
Corporate greed and immorality strikes again. When will we become tired enough of corporate malfeasance to do something about it?
4
@JDK
I suspect that the"coaches" couldn't care less about the health of the athletes; it's about money.
Ever notice that women don't tend to be the ones making these kinds of clueless "I'm sure it was the same for men" comments? I sure have.
12
What is wrong with us? We discover young people with talent - athletic, artistic, musical, whatever - and then we treat them like a commodity to be exploited. We focus so much on stardom that we squeeze all the joy out them. Too many of them end up depressed and burned out by their early twenties, if not irreparably damaged. This is a horrible indictment of a culture that values fame and money above all else.
14
Notice how so many men defend the coach in these comments, and so many women defend the athlete. How did we get so split on this issue? The reality is that severe weight loss in young women has a major impact on their fertility and bone density. If you demand weight loss in a very young girl, she will risk being unable to bear children for the rest of her life because her ovaries will not have developed properly to be able to ovulate. Are we really willing to take that risk in our young female athletes?
17
I've bought my last pair of Nikes.
9
@Joe I stopped supporting Nike and buying Nike shoes over 20 years ago when I heard their abusive practices at the factories that manufacture their shoes. Mary Cain's story just adds fuel to the fire.
4
As a former collegiate distance runner I was told to lose weight even at my thinnest of 115 lbs on a 5’9” frame was not enough. This is a gender issue. Women are treated like little men and we are starved by team “nutritionists” and then shamed that our performance stinks because we don’t want it badly enough. The female athlete triad is very real and anyone to tell you differently is clearly quite comfortable from their spot on the couch and has never been a distance runner.
20
What a brave, articulate, and generous young woman. So proud of you, Mary Cain, and glad to know we have people like you in the sport.
8
I am tired of these sorts of reports not just because Salazar and Nike may or may not be demons but perhaps more of because of the lack of avenues that exist to celebrate the exceptional coaches (or "teachers") that quietly go about their job of producing great humans. This was low hanging fruit for you NYT as it touches on corporate greed, child abuse, even #metoo. But I am sad that you chose this tact rather than inundating us with articles about great youth coaches and programs.
For over 25 year I have been a coach at both the youth and "Olympic" levels for a sport that is even less mainstream than any sort of track and field. I have worked with young athletes on their way to the Olympics, I worked with them at the Olympics, I also worked with those on their way to being nurses, teachers, gas station attendants and janitors. There are more stories of high quality coaches building human beings and value driven cultures than there are of stories like this. You wouldn't know by reading the comments. Because you (NYT) don't recognize my name as a coach, much less the guy/girl who used to be the fastest in their age class that just filled your tank, such a story won't sell subscriptions. You should spend more time finding coaches, youth or professional, in the ilk of John Wooden and publicize and celebrate them.
Finally, gender has no relevance to a good coach that is learning the learner. Again, low hanging fruit but this approach is an affront to male coaches and educators.
6
Alberto Salazar's reputation for abusing athletes under his tutelage and for encouraging doping was well-known when Mary Cain joined NOP. She was taken in by a Svengali. Herparents and Nike are not without blame. Hopefully she can recover and learn to be happy with herself and with running again.
3
I'm not sure why you would willingly associate yourself with a company best known for burning carcinogenic scrap rubber in foreign countries. I guess track was never my sport.
Anecdotally, making the Utah Olympic training team seems like a pretty sweet gig. Skiing in particular but also speed skating. I don't know what these athletes go through to get there. However, once you make the team you're essentially networked into an entire industry.
I would regularly see ski athletes rotate through the governor's office on various internships and temp positions in between training and college. You make very well-connected friends. Even for women who didn't ultimately qualify for the Olympics, there were no shortage of professional job opportunities waiting after the end of their sports career. Your job resume and recommendations will read a lot better than your typical college graduate.
Of course, even getting onto a high school ski team is a challenge in Utah. Everyone skis and they tend to ski fairly well. Making the team is the hard part. It's sort of like being an astronaut. Being in space is dangerous and difficult. However, being in space is only one part of the job. You need to do everything else well too.
1
Thank you for sharing your story. I'm sorry this this happened to you and other athletes and I hope that sharing your story will set positive changes into motion.
3
Humans:
if you are training to be the very best in the world there are some sacrifices you have to make. If you are not willing to, or your body is physically unable to - someone else will be the very best in the world.
The pinnacle of any competition is not full of sun and rainbows. It is full of blood, sweat and tears.
If you want a cozy life, take an easier route like the rest of us.
6
@Jordan Parker Jordan, she was the fastest woman in her sport when she started training with Nike. The point is, she did give them her blood, sweat and tears. She did everything her coaches asked for - and in doing so, she started losing races and broke five bones. Her commitment and dedication is not in question - their training method of starving her into malnutrition and infertility was the problem, not her.
5
It is more than a shame that a for-profit corporation can squeeze a human for the benefit of its marketing image. But even worse is when a corporation completely 'monetizes' every aspect of sport, from AAU through to the professional level, ultimately collapsing the experience into something extortive.
The Nike 'brand' is everywhere and contrary to what its shareholders currently believe, Nike is the opposite of exemplary branding.
Mary Cain, you rock. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. As a runner and mom to two young women, I'm grateful for you and your voice.
Nike, how does it feel to pretend to be inclusive and accepting and then destroy lives for the sake of profit? How do you sleep at night?
7
What is going on with Nike; seriously, this after the revelations re Alysia Montaño:
Olympic runner Alysia Montaño had accomplished all her dreams but one: being a mom. When she finally went for it, she faced her biggest challenge yet — her sponsors. Maternity Leave for Athletes? Just Do It https://nyti.ms/2Yl0JOX via @nytvideo
9
The Times is my main source of news and analysis and I trust most of it. But I'm deeply involved in elite distance running and this article scares me with its bias and deception. It omits well-known science and is hugely sensational. This is a wake-up call for me.
16
What bias and deception? Can you summarize? Those of us not involved in running are interested:
6
@Jack what is deceptive about this? Is Mary lying? Is Kara lying? Is Gracie lying?
5
That’s interesting. I’d love to hear more. What does it omit and how is it biased?
6
Everyone here in Portland OR, NIKE headquarters have known for years Phil Knight is completely knowledgeable that his company treats its athlete with little regard. They did finally remove all of Lance Armstrong's yellow jerseys from the Board of Trustee's room after employees complained. No one knows where they are stored
8
Is there no arena in which men are not abusing women to feed their own egos?
14
I feel for Mary Cain, but thousands of male athletes have been used and abused for the past 60 years by high schools, colleges and Pros. If we addressed this problem with the males then this wouldnt need to be adressed with the females. In our society boys are expendable, put them in the grinder and see who comes out. WOmen want equality the welcome to the world of men, where you are only as good as today and tomorrow is not a given
79
@D An abusive system is not a justification for what happened to Mary Cain. One of the key points of the article you may have missed is that that males and females require different training methods due to their physiological differences in order for them to reach their full potential.
66
@D Being Cain was abused, in part, because she was expected to train in a program designed for male athletes. Fixing male abuse won’t end female abuse.
56
@D This article upset me very much. My son was a D1 runner in college. What I find to be the most ironic thing is that yes, D1 coaches, Salazar, etc., are all about winning, which is fine. But, in many cases, like Mary Cain's, that is not happening. Could it be that a different method that valued the athlete's bodies might work better? Maybe not immediately, but over time?
I distinctly remember watching her when she was in high school and was shocked and saddened that afterwards she did so poorly. I hope for her that she can regain the joy she once had for running and reach her potential. The moral of the story: Listen to the athletes.
13
And she is also a casualty of the progressive thinkers who insist that biology is nothing; that female bodies are the same as men's just with different sex organs. No women cannot be trained like men. No women do not need to be rail thin; their bodies designed differently - we carry weight differently and if a female athlete does not get a period then that's the best clue that something is very wrong. That women's design is fundamentally different from men's also raises the obvious question of whether trans women should be permitted to compete against women in sports.and yes i know that testosterone levels can be quite high in biological women and these things are complicated. But if we cant ask questions because of fear of name calling then women's sports are doomed anyway.
14
@Suzanne OFFS. So it's l because of "progressives"? As a strident feminist, I fully understand the biological differences between men and women. There are no "progressives" who believe otherwise.
6
@Suzanne
Then there's Caster Semenya. High levels of testosterone, naturally occurring.
The solution (according to the IAAF): take some drugs to lower the testosterone.
She was too much like a "boy" to run with the "girls" I guess.
Boo Nike - you seriously suck!
From under aged factory workers to overpriced sneakers and now....breaking athletes down.
1
From the movie What Women Want:
“NIKE. No games. Just sports.”
Well, look who’s playing games...
Huh. This NYT article from 4 years ago talks about other female runners who broke down decades ago and how Salazar was training Cain to avoid such injuries:
"From the moment Salazar started coaching Cain, he set out to develop her talent slowly over the course of many years.
Cain responded well to Salazar’s program — to say the least. In 2013, the first year under his guidance, she seemed to smash a record every weekend. She broke the American female junior 1,500-meter record. She broke the American junior 800-meter record, becoming the first girl to do it in less than two minutes. She ran a 4:32.78 indoor mile, breaking the American girls’ high-school record, which was set 41 years earlier. That same year she broke her own record by four seconds.
Salazar’s cautious strategy for Cain grew out of his determination not to repeat the mistake that he made in his own prime: burning up remarkable talent early in life with a self-destructively ferocious drive and a more-is-better training philosophy."
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/magazine/mary-cain-is-growing-up-fast.html
2
One thing this article (conspicuously) does not mention... PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. But yeah, you might be able to force fit this square into a feminist circle.
6
I remember Mary from the 2012 - 2016 years. I wondered what had happened to her and would occasionally google her name. We want exceptional athletes to accomplish extraordinary things and are disappointed when they appear to fall short, but Mary in this video does not disappoint. I am as awed by her courage and determination to make it on her own terms as I am by her talent. It's nice to see you back, Mary! Hopefully your speaking out will help change a system that sabotages what it purports to nurture.
1113
Beautifully said!
9
@Katie I'd like to agree with your heartfelt comment except that it ignores that "what happened to her" has to do with a bad decision SHE made in HS under the influence of a very *involved* father (whom she does not mention in the piece) and a charismatic coach (whom *everyone* knew was bending anti-doping rules in every way possible). Her testimony now essentially blaming others (e.g., the all-male coaches, Nike, et al) is heart-breaking to watch but to me it feels a little disingenuous, as if she has yet to come to grips with the whole story.
2
@Katie I completely agree with you! Thx Mary for coming forward and hopefully helping other young women following in your foot steps.Literally and figuratively! You were a great young runner and now a great athletic woman with a chance to make an important difference... in a new way!
I just want to tell Mary that I am very, very sorry she was treated so badly by her coaches in the Nike program. I wish it had been different, but I'm glad she learned so early in her life, to protect herself going forward. She is brave to tell her story in the media, because there is a whole immoral corporate culture that is more interested in their bottom line than the health of any athlete under their influence or control---even now when Mary's story is known. Thank you for sharing your experience in track to protect other girls (and maybe boys as well) who love sports and may not have anyone to keep them safe. Your difficulty and your bravery will undoubtedly help many other athletes. You clearly know your value as a person now and will not allow any outside influence to treat you with other than respect and care--whether in the sporting arena or outside of it. Thousands of us are on your side. Good luck!
2
Nike has always been about profit and not people, even though they don't want you to see that. Like all of these huge corporations, they only change when something threatens their bottom line. They spend most of their money on marketing and it sounds like Mary is just another part of that formula. Good for her for speaking out!
1
Organized sports is not about the athletes. It's about the money that coaches and advertisers (opps, I mean Sponsors) make off those athletes. Either accept that you are not a human but a product or stay out of professional (and most amature) sports.
4
Mary Cain, you are truly a superstar in every sense of the word. Thank you for doing what you do. I wish you nothing but the very best!
4
She should sue them for millions, lost earnings, emotional abuse, physically abuse
1
The really sad fact is that in America millions of girls and boys never even just learn to run around and play with others naturally: Their lives are so structured and so many hours spend on computer trash that their bodies never reach their natural health.
So come on, NYT, what happened to Ms. Cain after she left the sport? Does she have permanent bone damage? Does she have muscle damage? What does it mean - her body started to "break down?" Did she fully recover, or do you never recover? And why don't athletes to whom this happens SPEAK OUT while it's happening? Why is everybody so afraid all the time to speak up? I just don't get, but then, I was born with a big mouth!
5
"And why don't athletes to whom this happens SPEAK OUT while it's happening?"
I think the author covered that question. See the paragraph that starts,
“When you’re training in a program like this, you’re constantly reminded how lucky you are to be there...."
1
And these tragedies are all in the service of...? Selling more sneakers?
2
Nike pays males and females on the same level.
A female designs male sneakers! AF 1!
Perhaps they need a female to design people who run. Instead of listening to the guys.
LOL... it's a stretch to tie the rigors of the Nike Oregon Project — which for virtually any runner include strict weight control — to the #MeToo Movement. But 'congratulations' for trying.
1
It's unbelievable this sort of thing can happen in an age when so much information and expertise is readily available, particularly within a well-known, high-profile profitable organization such as Nike. Just unbelievable. I guess there's still ignorance and stupidity even within such organizations.
BRAVA!
1
I quit my college track team for the same reason.
I was 6'6" tall and weighed 174 pounds. Without a shirt I looked like I had jest escaped a penal colony. And the new head coach yelled that I was fat. He wanted me to weigh no more than 169 pounds. And my body started to break down.
I ran track because I loved it. He took the joy out of it. But I quit something I loved for my own health, and to not take crap from a tyrant.
9
It is interesting to read Ms. Cain's OpEd piece and then go back to the New York Times 2015 article written by Elizabeth Weil.
"With their long ponytails and soft bodies, racing numbers pinned to their hips, none of the girls looked like much — but Cain, a freshman, looked like less. She wore hot pink shorts and a black sports bra, and her shoulders slumped with the impatient awkwardness of being 15...."
2
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Arrogance at its worst. Nike probably just wants thinner women so they look "better" in their ads. She should sue their collective pants off.
1
So just who is the culprit here NY Times? Alberto Salazar?, Nike? Or just males coaching young girls in general?
Considering John Henwood is Mary Cain's current coach, I'd say one of the three culprits has been eliminated. Yet you chose to point out "male coaches" in the byline.
1
Anyone who believes that being "thin" and reducing nutrients is a path to superior performance, should watch the decathlon challenge of professional athletes that included an NFL wide receiver and MLB athletes, perform against Arnold Schwarzenegger, who kicked the butts of athletes who's body mass index would be considered more "ideal".
Mary complains that the NIike/Salazar program never included a nutritionist. Unfortunately, a certified nutritionist may not have made any difference. The field of human nutrition is undergoing a huge transition, with a recognition that high carbohydrate diets are unhealthy, and foster the body's breakdown. Many sports nutritionists aren't keeping up with the science, are employing old, scientifcally bankrupt ideas, and injuring their athletes.
2
Sports training is not an exact science. Not all bodies react similarly to training, some super-compensate an get better, others break down, men and women.
In middle and long distance running, all elite athletes are thin, men and women.
There are good coaches, great coaches and bad coaches, men and women.
There are lots of athletes that were great when very young, then failed to be elite, men and women.
Why does everything has to be made women vs men nowadays?
2
Nike is arrogant, overrated, and stupid.
3
This is a powerful and very important story from a strong young woman. Thank goodness she was able to press through the oppressive, obsessive, heartless and destructive male-dominated culture at the training center and to come out the other side, healthy and dedicated to reforming that former culture of winning at any and all costs.
Thanks to Mary Cain and the NY Times for publishing this story.
3
Alberto Salazar was a stooge in the 1980's and its interesting to see that he remains one 40 years later. Parents and youngsters who crave athletic scholarships should be warned there are no free lunches. Our society is extremely screwed up.
2
these issues - of body shape/composition, diet - and the effects of the training required to compete at an elite level -- are not unique to female athletes.
Good for calling attention to it. Bad for trying to force it into a feminist agenda.
Sending love and support to Mary Cain. I hope you have fun running for the rest of your life. Thank you for sharing your story — it will help make things better for the girls who follow in your footsteps.
3
I am so proud of Mary Cain for speaking out about what happened to her as well as her recommendations to correct the abuse. Thank you, Mary... and I wish you success in whatever you pursue going forward.
2
Unfortunately they see the Kenyans and how thin they are and figure that’s why they are so fast. Doesn’t work that way for everyone. Having run in high school, college, afterwards and then coaching runners for forty years, I’ve probably see it all. We all want to do our best, and our goals constantly get reset. Parents and athletes need to do a better job of researching the programs they might choose. Talk to athletes that are already in that atmosphere because it always sounds great from the coach!
2
No one made her do any of this. What happened do personal responsibility?
4
Alleged tough guy men (and women) responding to this article by blaming Cain and her parents -- STOP. This isn't about her losing races, not being tough enough, not being fast enough. This is about athlete abuse, period.
Because back in the day athletes were afraid to speak out doesn't make this right. Because you or one of your friends played on a broken ankle, it doesn't make this right.
Quit blaming the victim and defending the win-at-all-costs coach and NIKE corporation. Cain is not to blame here.
4
Male or female, this is just bad coaching. A coach is supposed to work with his or her athletes to maximize their performance. Salazar had a lazy "one size fits all" approach to nutrition that had nothing to do with performance.
3
So despite enormous scientific advancements, women's bodies are still seen as basically male but with some Other Hormones inconveniently tossed in -- hormones that are responsible for a few basic changes that render too many women worldwide little more than objects for the sexual gratification of hetero men, or wombs to be legislated.
Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, largely because few people are educated about heart-attack symptoms in women -- which differ from those in men.
Women are safer drivers than men (per industry data), but more die in severe collisions because car safety is determined using dummies shaped and sized like men.
And so on, and so on, despite our being more than half of the population.
Enough.
3
Simply boycott Nike, and any other corporation that puts profit and biased ideas ahead of the welfare of people and the planet.
2
"A big part of this problem is that women and girls are being forced to meet athletic standards that are based on how men and boys develop. If you try to make a girl fit a boy’s development timeline, her body is at risk of breaking down. That is what happened to Cain."
I thought that was the goal of feminists movements. The article is really one sided. every world champion went the same road. it takes everything to be the best at something. everything including your health.
1
Nike abused Mary Cain. She was injured and dehumanized by Nike and Alberto Salazar.
However, Ms. Cain made a decision to be a professional employee of Nike, and take good money while attending University of Portland.
Many other female athletes choose the student athlete route and compete unfledged as amateurs at universities. Each year hundreds of athletes are paid indirectly by Nike to run and jump for the University of Oregon Ducks in Eugene. The facilities are commodious, the education very good, and most seem happy to be enjoying the college experience.
There are hundreds of good track programs throughout the country. The best young track & field athlete, Mondo Duplantis, did his event for a year at the LSU, forestalling the money. A friend won an Olympic Gold after training at Bowling Green. My nondescript college produced a medalist in Rio.
Ms. Cain has also been done a disservice by the NCAA in that she cannot regain her amateur status and go to university on scholarship, much like basketball and football players who can't hack the pros.
The hormonal effects of training on women have been well studied and published. Nike and Salazar should have known better. Also, women's bodies change with age and are much more complicated than the male. Ms. Cain needed better medical advice. Perhaps Nike was negligent. I don't think Ms. Cain has a tortious claim because she has not filed.
Yes, victimized by Nike but poor decisions also.
2
Win at all cost? And what kind of parents allow their children to be exploited in this manner? Or is it the parental greed for fame?
4
Alberto Salazar is a con man par excellence. Never liked him or what he represented. If Ms. Cain was my daughter, Nike would be in a whole world of trouble...
This is no different than Lance Armstrong and his minions demanding that those on his team support him by doping. This one is just less sophisticated.
This is a horrible, story and a wake-up call. I'm a mom with three kids who all play different sports, for fun and exercise. I've purchased Nike products for all my kids. I'd be very happy to purchase sports gear from a women-owned sportswear company instead. I won't be buying Nike products anymore.
2
What a tragic picture - especially when compared to The NY Times Magazine profile In March 4, 2015 "Mary Cain is Growing up Fast" - I remember reading that and being amazed at what she could do at so young an age. There was praise for Salazar then - because it was about results.....not how he got them there.
I experienced this pressure when dancing, particularly ballet. Unhealthy and ultimately harmful, the notion that the the ideal body will demonstrate technique that is better is laughable.
Muscles, strength and flexibility make a strong dancer and athlete. I even had one teacher who told us not to drink water because we looked fat.
ENOUGH
5
Win at all costs culture in the U.S. (in everything from athletics to art to business) and what this really means on the ground?
I don't think there is any reliable method of increasing performance in a person or a group of people in any field not to mention over society as a whole without painful costs. We should probably extend that problem to technology, anything else really, as well. There is incredible pressure at elite levels of education, elite corporate activity, athletics, the arts, sciences. Having exceptional athletic ability or an exceptional mind doesn't necessarily mean you have it made over the less exceptional people; you are expected to perform and nobody really has it down to perfection to determine how to bring out the best in a person in this or that field without endangering the person, ruining performance.
It's actually legendary all the routines, rituals, superstitions exceptional people have developed historically to increase performance in respective fields. It's also a story of dangerous experimentation, damaged bodies and minds, drug abuse, mental illness, suicide, early death, maladjustment to society. The bright side is you weren't a loser like all those millions who never attempted anything exceptional. And losers everybody else become as a society becomes more committed to excellence.
I would say the more promising the talent in any field the more likely the person to experience the dangers of edge of performance. It's edge for a reason.
1
Instead of shallow sometimes grotesque or most extreme or sensational we need to push our natures just a bit deeper and reward/patronize more holistically. So we need to be impressed not necessarily the fastest but the one that is healthy and sustainable impressive!! Non-and unethical capitalism does just one thing chases money. As the patrons we need choose better what we reward or nothing will change.
2
Mary, Thank you for having the strength to speak up and share your story! You have a huge running community out here that supports you and appreciates your courage. It sounds to me like you could be a motivating factor for someone (maybe even Nike?) to put together an all-women program? Coaches, trainers, nutritionists etc. Its relevant, necessary and long overdue. Thank you again.
4
I feel for these women and all athletes. But what her experience shows is how attractive is the idea of winning at all costs. It's ingrained in our society that winning is everything. Get on the best team is no different than getting into the best school. Those who survive win, but may be broken. Who cares? not us, because all we want are winners.
3
At a certain point losing weight means losing muscle mass and bone density.
Salazar may have been a great runner but failed to become educated about how to train his female athletes for maximum performance as proven by the body breakdown of Mary Cain's body.
He needs to be banned for life from the sport.
I suspect, since Mary was a minor when she began with Nike, that there is a potential for child abuse charges being brought into the picture. If anyone else did this to their child, the authorities would certainly be involved.
6
"The culture that created Salazar remains."
That culture is called late capitalism. Until we demonstrate that we're willing to adapt, there's no evidence that it will dissipate.
2
Why is victimhood being embraced and celebrated so? There will always be abusive people in the world- coaches, partners, employers, whoever. Why stay and be abused, regardless of the compensation offered? Why don't we refuse to become victims instead?
Seek a coach who works for you, refuse an abusive program which doesn't bring out the best performance, admit it was a mistake to pick the wrong training, learn from it and start making better choices?
4
I have quite a problem with the fact NYT editorial team ended the video with Salazar's and even Nike denial or refusal to engage. Behavioural psychology states that opening and ending of experience are what the mind focuses on. Why to meddle with this powerful statement of the athlete? Coach and company have enough power and support behind them...
On the other note, I was training thai boxing recreationally for a couple of years, and had contact with other women in my gym. Especially aspiring semi pros got quite bad nutrition/psychology etc advice - mostly based on men training men experiences. Losing periods, crying or dropping the sport were regular occurrence.
I had quite wise trainer myself, and was older than most girls in the gym, so no serious harm was done, but I was discouraged from competing, and gained very manly muscle mass that I am quite unable to lose now (mostly caused by heavy weights for arms). Most of my girl cofighters dropped the sport during two-three years, even though most of them were highly motivated (more than many guys that were strongly encouraged by the trainers to stick to the sport).
Maybe all coaches training women should get some additional certification, especially from nutrition, hormonal and psychology point of view before they are allowed to do so?
2
@Justyna - Maybe men should not be training women?
2
Big surprise!
Something similar happened to me, albeit on a less competitive level, when I was training for long distance running and triathlons years ago. As my body weight dropped below a certain threshold, my times were getting slower and slower. After putting 10 lbs back on, I was back at optimal performance.
There was a 5 lbs window within which I was performing optimally. When I moved outside that window two things happened: 1) I did not feel as well, and 2) my performance got worse.
My advice from my own experience would be: Listen to your body and stay within the window where you feel good, balanced and happy. Only you know where that window is. No sport is worth feeling constantly miserable and ruining your health for.
3
It's striking to go back and read the Times magazine profile from 2015, which extolled Salazar's measured training practices, He intended to avoid overtraining and burnout, with the long-term goal of having Cain at peak performance level when she reached 25 -- two years from now.
I know it's easy to criticize this portrayal in hindsight, but I still think it's worthwhile. The Times heard what Salazar was saying, but the reporter didn't look hard enough or long enough to see what he was doing. The result was the kind of coverage that helped, essentially, to gaslight Cain.
9
All coaches, trainers, nutritionists and any other people involved in the malpractice of limiting calories should have ALL certifications, diplomas etc. revoked and their names stricken from any future list.
Basic human metabolism, as taught in Human Performance 101! No food....body will shut down aspects of some functions. Per usual, the 'authorities' are all in favor of abuse as it's not them.
2
There is no situation in which a young woman stopping menstruating for 3 years is healthy. There was an entire team of trainers, coaches and physicians who knew this and if they didn't they should have.
Anytime money becomes the focus of anything, it breaks down and becomes distorted and that is especially true in sports. Society has complicity accepted that many sports are harmful and can cause life long physical damage, but hey, they are entertaining and revenue producing, so no big deal.
6
Great story. I hope she realizes her dreams not Nike's.
3
Mary Cain should be commended for stepping forward, sharing her painful story and shining a light on a problem that plagues all corners of female endurance sports. However, I think it is important to point out that it does not take an abusive coach for an unhealthy environment to exist in a sport where the ethos is thinner=fitter=faster. All coaches, male and female, push their athletes to train harder, eat healthier and pursue a higher level of fitness. The culture of the sport puts kids at risk Coaches and parents need to be vigilant for warning signs of eating disorders and RED-S syndrome.
3
@AL - There are also a lot of folks at home without coaches and dietitians who try and recreate this in their own routines.
Don't forget that Salazar also trained himself into the ground and he was washed up in his mid-20s. It's clear he still believes in this philosophy, no lesson learned. The golden rule is to train at no more than 80% effort level, +/- a point or two, and much less most of the time. It is the accumulation of these efforts over time that leads to improvement, not the herculean effort. Exceed this threshold and a breakdown inevitably follows. Ironically, arguably the best distance runner in history (Eluid Kipchoge, the first sub-2 hour marathoner) follows this rule. Even all out racing should be somewhat under control (grinding is a sign of physical failure) until the last 10-15% of the effort. If you are not fit and physiologically capable of running a sub 4:00 min mile, you cannot make it happen on race day through sheer will power and suffering.
7
One thing that's important to note here is that a sport like cross-country running caters to bodies with delayed maturity. Both my brother and I excelled on our respective cross-country teams because we went through puberty later. I ran varsity cross-country as a freshman and captained the team as a sophomore. Then, my body changed significantly halfway through high school and I had to adjust my form accordingly, subsequently becoming slower for a while. Because I didn't have my eye on a sports scholarship, it was neither here nor there for me, but I can understand how trying to navigate these changes in the female body while also being an elite runner could be confounding and defeating. HOWEVER, the female body is miraculous. If organized sports could step back and allow it to flourish (or recover from pregnancy) they would see women often come back from physical changes faster, stronger and tougher. As a forty-one-year-old mother of two, I'm quicker, more agile and certainly stronger than I've ever been in my life. Nike, and others, need to give young women the space to grow, the luxury of rest and the ability to come back when they can with grace and resilience.
6
@Lee Good thoughts all. However, rest should not be a luxury. Not a luxury. A requirement
Occasionally, I read an article, and also watch a video in this case, and find myself just staring at the page. This was one of those times. Instead of going on and on about this, instead, I shall be brief. We need more Mary Cains in this world and less Alberto Salazars. Godspeed, Mary.
14
One would hope that in the future, any elite program training young female athletes would include one or more females on the training team, including trainers, coaches, nutritionists, physiologists, etc.
6
Sadly, this is not surprising, that girls' bodies are assumed to respond to training optimized for boy's bodies. Maybe it's a leap, but this brings to my mind the controversy of letting trans women athletes compete against cis women. I'm undecided, but this perspective tugs me in the "no" direction.
2
Thanks for sharing your story, Mary Cain. I hope you heal— you are a strong and brave woman.
6
Mary Cain, thank you for speaking out! You are so brave and strong and I have no doubt that your new chapter will be much more rewarding and happier for having stood up for yourself and your fellow female athletes. Shame on Nike and Alberto Salazar!
2
Unfortunate, but apart from some female-specific training issues, this seems like an athlete/coach problem generally, not just a biological sex-based development issue... the figure skater I’ll buy as a genuine gender bias issue, but lighter athletes who put out the same power ARE faster... until they can’t produce the same power. And athletic amenorrhea isn’t particularly uncommon either at low body fat levels, but I suppose you’d hope it was a temporary thing at peak, not for 3 years straight...
I knew a guy when I was cycling who went to Italy to ride in a pro road team... he was told to chew gum instead of eating by his old-school coaches. Lost heaps of weight. Also lost his sprint, and didn’t climb any better, got sick all the time, had a terrible season. His results improved when he started eating properly again and gained some muscle back.
5
@R - And here I had always been taught to carbo-load the night before a big ride. Good grief, I even get advice from pros stating that I need to eat/drink during a ride to keep the fuel going.
Sadly, humans know diddly-squat about the human body and there are as many myths floating around as actual science. And a lot of it comes from scientists first until someone down the road proves them wrong.
I believe her story. The Nike approach to everything is similar to bullying. You will do things their way or face the wrath of confronting the lawyers of a very powerful and popular brand name. I live four miles from Nike world headquartersThey shape the decisions regarding our county tax laws to benefit themselves and ONLY themselves.
5
There's a societal problem here: the assumption that thinner and thinner is healthier for women, all women. We look at men's bodies and appreciate muscle. We look at women's bodies, even elite athletes, and we want them to be thinner.
Look at the garbage that people talk about Serena Williams's body. She is arguably the best ever in her sport, but anytime there's mention of her name, the voices start up about how "much better" she'd look if she slimmed down and "looked more feminine." What does that have to do with anything?
On the opposite side of the same coin, any fat woman who presents herself to a doctor can expect that whatever her symptoms, she will be told to lose weight before she's allowed anything.
It is almost as if we wish women would just — disappear!
20
How very sad that these young people didn't have parents looking out for their best interests. The desire for achievement, money(?), and fame for their children must have blinded them.
6
Male and female distance runners succumb to RED-S and severe anemia, accumulating stress fractures, and breaking themselves until their contract is up. Male athletes suffer from mental health challenges too. Salazar has coached the best female runners in the world. The training methods and physiological differences between men and women have little to do with the problem. Every athlete at the top is working up to the point of breaking, and many cross it. The difference is the support and environment that is available. Because success rides on consistency, we're seeing teams that focus on health over performance and have a strong intra-organize, positive culture succeed, like the Bowerman TC. The same can be said for collegiate programs. But since the collegiate system is geared to peak athletes for their 3-5th years, American distance running has lost a significant amount of talent. Mary skipped the D1 collegiate system and statistically, there is a good chance that she (and her male counterpart) would have quit running by the end. What's nuts is that most runners have to rely on companies to provide healthcare and their chance at making a living income rides on their ability to abuse themselves. America does not support endurance athletes. A strong national organization, independent of brands and sponsors, would go a long ways.
210
@David Hedges Salazar did not coach the best female runners. He tried to.
Mary Cain was not suffering from mental challenges. She did not "abuse herself". She was under a terrible pressure and she suffered abuse. Let's not play with the words and switch the blame.
My daughter runs long distance (1K to 5K) and the pressure on getting thinner at the high school level is making her cry. They scoop pre-teen girls from the associated middle-school. She made it first to varsity team as a 7th grader. Now as a 10th grader she runs better, but her body changed. As a Latino girl she is the team oddity. I just on telling her, keep running but stay healthy. Doping starts with ... invitations to run with a Sudafed before races, to take some weight loss pills to carry less weight with you uphill in cross-country, or contraceptive to avoid periods during "crucial" races ... As a parent, I find it hard to fight the pressure put on my no-name daughter.
65
@David Hedges With all do respect, there is a huge difference between male and female elite athletes in endurance running both physically and psychologically. Its beyond pushing yourself to the limit but basic biology which male coaches just don't know. When I started running as a child, we still had gender specific heats based on assumptions about the female body. Trust me, they (drs, coaches, medical profession) don't know nearly enough about the female body as they should.
35
@David Hedges — Boo hoo. Taxpayers (what you attempt to pass off as "America") are under no legal obligation to "support endurance athletes."
Nobody forced these athletes into suffering the regimen of what it takes to be an elite athlete. The fact is, if it were easy, everyone would do it.
7
Chalene Johnson, who has been the star of several exercise videos, relates the same in her book “131 Method”. She was pushed to lose more and more weight in order to have the right “look” the producers wanted her to have.
Where were the parents? The father is a physician. Mary was the most publicized HS athlete in athletics and yet they couldn’t see what was happening? Why?
8
My question exactly.
1
@Spiro Jan
The father of my children was a doctor. If I listed all of the health issues and, on occasions, crises, he failed to notice you would be shocked. When they come home many times they are 100% off duty. It's a good thing that I was a normal, concerned, observant mother.
1
This article should be about dieting and the abuse a college athlete endures. It should also be about how Nike needs to face charges or at least public humiliation for hilariously badly handling the training of several athletes.
Instead, it's a gender hit piece with diet and college athlete overtones.
What exactly is your goal with this piece? Is there a genuine tie-in to gender? Males get eating disorders, males get abused by male and female coaches, males have suicidal thoughts stemming from crazy pressure too - why only make this about female problems? It seems like someone took an article about something other than gender and forced a bunch of gender-negative opinions into it without properly binding them to the narrative.
1
@Keef
She didn't run for a college team, so I don't know you would think her story should be about college sports.
Did you even watch the video until the end? Ms. Cain lays out exactly what she thinks ought to happen.
Lastly, this is HER story, told not only "in her own words" but by her, to the camera. Unless she comes out later and says otherwise, I don't see any evidence of a mysterious "someone" taking her story and forcing anything into it. Clearly you are the one who has an agenda here.
1
@Keef
Yes, Ms. Cain spurned scholarship offers from universities to take professional money from Nike.
She was not a college student athlete.
That fact is obscured.
2
Misogyny, or at the very least, unconscious bias, leads coaches and sport leaders to impose an idealized view of mechanical advantage onto athletes, and although Cain's experience didn't include sports science and nutrition, those fields are at times also used (probably unconsciously) to promote an unrealistic ideal. If we want sports to be purely mechanical in nature, just start having competitions between robots. If we want to promote athletics as an exciting part of a whole person's development, then we must reveal the biases and choose health over toxicity. I say this as a former athlete and coach who is very glad to see the stories of athletes like Cain and Gold being shared so that our sport training environments can improve.
1
I wondered what had happened with Mary. All is now clear. What a waste. One wonders where she'd be if a coach had really worked WITH her as an individual instead of simplistically focusing on weight.
First, how can a supposedly elite coaching team NOT have a nutritionist, NOT have a psychologist?
How can the doctor on an 'elite team' team ignore clear physical symptoms that something is wrong? Is it considered normal when a girl's period stops for months? for years? (apparently, and insanely, yes). How do you ignore dropping bone density and broken bones? Stress fractures are NOT normal
What exactly are the qualifications of Salazar and those on his team? Are they trained to evaluate body mechanics and optimize form? Mental training is a big part of high level competitions. Yet there was no psychologist available. Salazar's techniques did not provide positive reinforcement but focused on criticism and insults. Since when is that a good approach to improvement?
There is so much wrong here (and apparently with the training of female athletes in general). Sadly speaking out often brings repercussions. I hope that does not happen to Mary or others. I hope this brings examination and change.
2
I was walking past the Nike store in downtown Portland in the fall of 2006 and in the display window was a manikin dressing Nike football gear. "PREPARE FOR COMBAT!" read the accompanying signing the window at a time we had soldiers in real combat, being injured, even dying. I've never bought a Nike item since.
She is a victim of this silly mentality in sports and other activities that puts profit ahead of people. She produces the bucks for Nike! How id this any different from Jeff Bezos' sweat shop warehouses where the workers who earn the profits are only seen as widgets and not people with lives to live.
3
The French have a saying: plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose - the more things change, the more they stay the same. Mary is EXACTLY right when she says Nike will just re-brand the Nike Oregon Project. They did it before when they expeditiously shuttered their prominent Athletics West team (the most famous, prominent member being one Alberto Salazar) in 1985 immediately after one of their athletes, my friend Jeff Drenth, was found dead in the AW locker room after a run. I was not formally on the AW team but I was a Nike athlete at that time living in Eugene and had full and unfettered access to AW coaches, massage therapists, facilities, etc. To say it was the same sick joke as what Ms. Cain encountered at NOP is an understatement. NOP appears to be an exact replica of the failed and discredited AW. When she told of how all the coaches and support staff were Alberto Yes Men, it sent a chill of recognition down my spine. "Plus ca change" indeed...
Nike makes huge money off of women who buy their apparel and they market that by presenting ripped, near-skeletal distance runners to serve up as the aspirational example for girls and women. This is not just about excelling on the track, it is driven by and baked into their marketing, as it has been from the beginning. They are playing with fire.
5
I didn't think I could be 'triggered' by any new information, but it seems that even with all of the education we have about nutrition and exercise science, our athletes are being pushed beyond their limits by inhuman and inhumane standards. It seems like nothing has changed since I was in college almost 30 years ago. Everything I faced back then still exists today. When I was 20, I weighed 98 pounds and was so malnourished the skin on my hands peeled off when I washed them. When, concerned, I told my grandmother, she laughed loudly and said what was I worried about? I looked great. I paid for my college through modeling, doing art, and being the editor and publisher of the 5-college newspaper at my 'elite' So Cal private liberal arts colleges. Eleven days after my 21st birthday, the professor who gave me the 5 college writing prize 2 years in a row raped me. I chose not to prosecute him because I was afraid to testify. I lost my opportunity at a Rhodes Scholarship and Watson Fellowship but I did graduate. You want to think: these things will improve. The only difference is the information is featured in public. That is it. Back then -- all these things were secret and shameful. They are still shameful crimes but public revelations seem to make no difference. No difference at all. The only reason my daughter has it better is that I am her mother and will never betray, shame or laugh at her.
8
The "it's men's fault" is a convenient self-righteous trope. To buy that angle, the attack needs a corroborating story that proves that the problem doesn't exist when women are involved and show most male-run programs produce an abusive misogynistic culture.
That said, world-class sports or even D-1 level sports are extraordinarily demanding and invariably have a physical toll.
If you think that RED-S is scary, try on CTE for size.
3
Mary Cain, brave woman, your testimonial goes beyond sports, soaring ahead into societal values, expectations and thoughtlessness about women.
1
Watching this video I have two thoughts: 1. I wonder what Nike's CEO thinks about this and 2. Alberto Salazar should be banned from the sport for a lifetime.
1
Female coaches aren’t the answer: internalized misogyny carries its own harmful training ideas to our young girl athletes. My 13yo daughter’s swim coach weighed the girls in front of each other, made comments about snacks, and publicly shamed them too.
2
I remember walking past a Nike store in CA a couple years back.
The front windows were completely wrapped with an image of Serena Williams.
Trouble was, it was her face, but not her body - not even close.
I'll let you guess what Nike's marketing department did with their good friend Photoshop and her body.
Nike likes lean, no question.
We've seen this story before in the fairy tale about the "Golden Goose."
Greed causes the beneficiaries of athletes' extreme talent to exploit and, unwittingly, destroy them.
1
@Melinda Young
I think the use "unwittingly" is incorrect here. I see you are giving the benefit of the doubt but Consciously would be more accurate in my estimation.
1
So she was the fastest girl in the country. So why fix what's not broken? Leave it to Corporate America to export every possible resource.
1
One of your athletes tells you she is cutting herself and your response is to go to bed? Forget everything else, this fact alone should tell you the coach needs to go. My goodness, where is the compassion, the kindness, the humanity in the man?
Capitalism
Unfettered and believed by many to be the answer to everything!
Boycott all the mega-corporations you can.
2
Maybe we should encourage our young runners to go to Kenya or Ethiopia to train , and live , with their runners. See Eliud Kipchoge, and his country women. They win a lot more than ours; our runners. Even at his level, and now wealth, he still returns to his simple village, simple diet, etc., to train and gets great results, as do his country women, it appears.
1
@danxueli - I know a lot of Ethiopians and they all look like Soul Train dancers from the 60's. They are a slinky people genetically. And their food is soooooo hot you go into a full sweat just during the appetizers. Contrast this with all of the Samoan friends I have who are a huge people genetically. I doubt I will ever meet a Samoan long distance runner nor will I ever meet a female Ethiopian weightlifter. And I am not genetically predisposed to excel at either of these.
As a practitioner who sees anorexic patients in a metropolitan area, I have found that a concerning number of patients have been running cross-country at a handful of suburban high schools.
My impression is that the coaching staffs should have identified these participants earlier.
Anorexia is the deadliest mental disorder. Link below.
Maybe this article will help.
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2012/spotlight-on-eating-disorders.shtml
1
This video reminded me of an article in Ms Magazine many years ago: Fat Is A Feminist Issue. Girls and women have TV role models who are clearly anorexic. Girls and women are told by a woman clothing designer that if they feel beautiful, they will feel confident. Women face a sexual assault rampage when they attend college. Women unite - take back your life.
1
Thank you for this enlightening exposé. I hope the article and video are widely shared.
Mary! you are so brave! so happy you are speaking up! you can be the head of a sports revolution!
Mary Cain shows great courage in trying to reform the system and how it treats women. Curious how the original New York Times Magazine profile that got the situation so wrong ever made it through the reporting and editing process?
1
How horrifying. Just absolutely appalling and disgusting. I haven't worn Nikes since high school and prefer Reeboks as they fit my feet better. After their unfair labor and trade practice scandals prior to this latest scandal, I don't know why anyone would wear their products ever again. I hope all of these young women have full mental and physical recoveries and find their self-worth and love for their sports again.
1
This is a horrible story and I'm glad you got out of there. Mind and body health first.
2
Why do so many men in so many areas seem to hate women's bodies? Could it be that, for at least some of them, trying to make women thinner and thinner is subconsciously a way to try to make them look more male? Or a way to try to make them barely there? Or both?
Oh, I see. Remake the girl runners into boy runners — no curves and no periods.
Certainly, women would be better athletes overall without those unnecessary features.
As usual, flawed from the very core.
According to Salazar logic, if track athletes weighed nothing they would win everything.
Swipe left Nike and Salazar
Swipe right Mary Cain
1
I remember seeing Mary run at Sunken Meadow Park with my daughter. She was already legendary. It was shocking that she was so quickly fast-tracked to be a pro runner with Nike, but it also seemed like she needed to compete a higher level of competition than what she was getting.
Watching her video, I feel embarrassed that I had selfishly hoped for her to be the next Mary Decker. Hope for a phenom in women's running, I thought, would be so inspiring for young American runners. In contrast, I feel immense pride and gratitude that Mary has the courage to speak out against Nike and a systemic flaw in the way young girls are coached.
Bravo! This young lady has talent, and not just as a runner.
Thank you for sharing your story! You have helped countless women by exposing the brutal hypocrisy of NIke Inc. and Alberto Salazar. He should be banned for life, not just 4 years. I always wondered for years what the heck happened to you in Oregon. It bothered me, it seemed like something bad had happened to you....it was all very strange. I never in a million years imagined this...such physical, mental and psychological abuse. You are extremely brave to come forward with your story. I hope you are happy and doing well know. Thank you for telling your story.
2
Thank you, Mary Cain, for escaping, taking steps to heal, and for turning your energies to reform. You are invaluable.
The most disturbing sense I get from this story is that deliberate, arrogant, incompetent and unconscionable ignorance about women athletes’ bodies allows these men to undermine female power and accomplishment. Basic, deep, misogyny.
1
Nike: Right or wrong, moral or immoral, cheating or fair, just do it.
2
Thank you for speaking out, Mary. You are an incredibly brave person!
2
Some of us are athletes because without sports our soul would wither and die. Today's system is routinely killing young athlete's souls as well as their bodies as the price of victory. Thank you for bravely speaking out.
2
I don't know why I still expect good companies to be above board and do the right thing. Did they get there through deceit or were they actually a good company at one time? Why does success today mean hurting and abusing others?
1
@Sally Larson These are important questions that vastly more people should be asking. I don't know if this can be attributed to capitalism per se, the American approach to business, the types of people who run these corporations, or some combination of these factors. Lucky may be those who never encounter the world in which the events and attitudes described in this article are dominating individuals, especially young people who are making money for others (and let's not forget their shareholders: ever-increasing profits are absolute).
From all of this, something good will come. Females will train and develop as athletes without having to be anorexic.
Mary Cain...welcome to the brutal, cruel, and highly selective real world.
1
Mary Cain - You are amazing; please keep speaking out. And thank you.
Mary ..bravo for coming out with your story.
All the best and go ahead
Agency comes with maturity.
1
Wow! Great eye opening story. Thank you Mary Cain & NYTimes. This is amazing ground breaking story!
Wow, Mary. I applaud you. You're a role model, fierce and brave in addition to being talented. In addition to being a great runner now and into the future-- YOU should coach! You can teach young women, and I'm sure young men, too, how to run their best. At the core of that is honoring the self, and honoring the joy. Use that bright light that shines out from you when you run and when you speak. It is far more powerful than a stupid corporate swoosh. What you have, naturally, is what those wanna bes hope to capitalize on. Though it might not feel like it, you hold all the cards that matter! Thanks for telling your past story. Now on to your bright future! What an incredible story you have.
2
Good luck to you Mary. Thank you for speaking out.
1
This is a terrible system. I don't think this something exclusive to women though. Professional athletics destroys the bodies of many athletes, men and women. To frame this only in terms of men vs. women isn't right.
5
@Brian In this instance it is. You have a male coach pushing an aesthetic ideal on a female athlete, one that directly contraindicates athletic achievement. The ideal in question is one held up by a patriarchal society as a paragon of sexual appeal -- appeal to men, that is.
1
Some thirty years ago as a teen, I attended a running camp in the Steens Mountains in SE Oregon. We were thrilled to have the head running coach for The University of Oregon track team in to give advice and analyze our stride. During a Q & A he was asked specifically about women’s physiology and some pointers on how to improve
His reply: “Run more like the men.” Said with a smirk and an edge of snark.
It elicited some laughs and some audible groans. At the time, this seemed to me some possibly poor advice and probably misogynistic. But he was the expert... Guess three decades have not changed that attitude much.
493
I think this comment shows that what happened to Ms. Cain was not at all an aberration, but the outcome of a cultural mindset that goes back many years and is embedded in both men's and women's sports. The whole system needs to be overhauled and cleaned up. Just do it.
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@Michael Bakkensen My daughter actually had the opposite experience at the Steens Mountain Running Camp a few years ago. She heard female distance runner phenom Melody Fairchild give a speech about the link between performance and a diet composed of nutritious whole foods, and not only changed her own diet as a result, but decided to major in nutrition in college. Hats off to Steens for bringing people like Melody on board to offer these healthy perspectives before many of these young adults pursue running in college and beyond.
38
@Michael Bakkensen
Was the head coach from the men's program or the women's?
1
Bravo to Ms. Cain and the NYTimes for spotlighting her tragic story, and for calling out a systemic problem so that others won't have to endure what she did. We wish her future success and good health.
2
This is not just about athletics. It’s about cultural expectations of girls and women in the western world. In the 1950s, no one was overweight, but we were publicly admonished to be “good girls”. I was taken out into the hall and told by my third grade teacher that my behavior (being slightly silly in class) was expected of BOYS, but not ME. The weight thing was added later. I’ve always been slender. I was stopped by strangers, (men) who just had to express their admiration of my shape, wanted to take photos, etc. It felt invasive and slimy. Have even been told by women that they are impressed that I haven’t gained weight. When going through a trauma, at a very underweight 88 pounds from stress, was when I got the most positive male attention. Absolutely disgusting, but I had the nerve to say so to “admirers”, as I was raised by a mother far ahead of her time. It really feels like we’re going backwards since the 1970s. The simple ERA might finally pass? Good grief.
5
A similar expose should be done on models. Accurately depicting that world would stun readers.
5
Food good. Sports bad.
This is a ridiculous article. Winner take all is the foundation of capitalism and American sports. Who cares for losers? Look at professional athletes. In football average careers are 4 years. The guys we see year after year as star QB's or a particular skill position, are anomalies. You seldom hear of a veteran 14 year linebacker. Most 4 years are pushed out by intense competition which causes injuries, playing injured and getting injured again.
It is great to see girls make an effort to compete at this level but sad to hear they folded under the pressure. That is the system and environment they tried to run in. If you want to be a sprinter and run one lap - that is fine. Just don't try to compete in a marathon.
1
@gigabob you missed the story completely. It's not about losing races, it's about body abuse, shaming, and knowing NIKE, cutting corners everywhere to make a dime. This is flat-out abuse and if the place you worked was like this the manager would be fired and sued.
Linebackers and other football players indeed are now speaking out about CTE and injuries. You're not paying attention.
This isn't the 1950's anymore.
3
She signed with Nike at 17....who are Mary Cain’s parents? Did they have absolutely no idea about what their daughter was experiencing?
6
@Thinker NIKE told them they would care for her daughter. They did not. They failed. Why in America are we so quick to defend corporations and blame parents and people?
@TRS - I blame a parent when they turn their child over to another adult and don't keep tabs. Take the case about Kesha and her producer. Why on earth would an adult let their 17 year old daughter move in with a guy? Let alone someone in the music industry?
Both parents and Nike are at fault with this one.
3
Probably because most normal parents know they care more about their daughter’s well being than corporations unless they too fall into the “ win at all costs”.mentality. There are apparently quite a few parents that fit that description.
1
What a tragic story, such a brave young woman.
Sadly, this paradigm exists for many athletes of both genders at many levels.
It’s all about the money. The stupidity is obvious: athletes would be so much better off if mental and physical health, nutrition, and training practices combined forces to enhance performance. So obvious.
2
Wow. I’m beyond horrified. I’m a female runner of 27+ years and was anorexic in my youth. I’m stunned that there are still running coaches out there that focus so much on weight. I thought that was old news and coaches had realized how dangerous and counterproductive being too thin is. What kind of idiots were these guys at the Nike Oregon Project? They sound completely unqualified to coach anything. No athlete can perform well when they are constantly malnourished. They will get injured and sick and will end up treading water and never progressing. This is simple stuff. You don’t even need a qualified nutritionist to explain that to you.
Neither do these Nike dunces seem to understand the link between an athlete’s mind and attitude and her/his performance. Athletics isn’t all about physical attributes. You can have everything physically right and perfectly trained and if you take away the athlete’s drive, desire, and will to compete and win you no longer have an athlete at all.
Nike took an extraordinarily talented girl and broke her body and her spirit. Fortunately, that was temporary. She seems infinitely stronger and wiser than they are. Good for you Mary for leaving that toxic circus. Good for you for bringing this to everyone’s attention. Keep running. Stay strong. And consider going into coaching.... It appears the world of female athletics is badly in need of some people with a clue to get them on the right track.
10
This clearly shows how arrogant some professional athletes and trainers are as they did not look out for her and countless others.
2
Mary Cain fascinated me when she emerged as such an incredible young athlete. To see her such an articulate and brave young woman continues her arc as a strong example for girls everywhere.
Thank you Mary for sharing your story.
5
Awful. Could we please get an update on how she's feeling? She said she's running, but is she competing? Is she getting care? Is she OK???
Why is it that sports broadcasts, when showing an athlete’s body stats, give men’s weights but not women’s? Show what we weigh, we're not weightless.
2
@Mary S. - Mercy, I'm not even allowed to ask a woman's age and you want me to ask her what she weighs?
I met a young Danish athlete who lived in Girona to tryout for Garmin's pro cycling team. He was instructed to ride until he was dizzy, then eat an energy bar, and repeat. Dinner was the size of a computer mouse.
However, what got him was how shallow the pros were. He said they were incapable of discussing life topics outside of their bubble. Ultimately the whole experience felt like a void and he decided to quit. Professional cycling with its dirty history and conspiracy of silence would welcome Salazar with open arms.
As for you Mary, this is the first I've heard or seen of you since reading your NYT Mag feature a few years back. I was inspired when I read your story then and I'm more inspired now. Remember there's more to sport than competition and motherhood will be the steepest hill you ever climb but the rewards are infinite. Running needs girls like you.
3
Seems Nike doesn't like women. They don't want "their" women to look like women, and they certainly don't want them to do what only women can do: get pregnant and have babies. I detect some very deep-seated gynophobia. All the men who participated in Mary's mistreatment should be severely punished. And Nike should be sued for hostile work environment.
2
I hope that Mary finds her way back to being the great runner that she is. She is still young and talented. New Balance Boston Coach Mark Coogan has a growing reputation of success with both very talented athletes as well as with athletes who either lost their shine or never really shined before. Best wishes to Mary! Become Boston Strong!
"Mary Cain’s male coaches were ..." The implication that this absurd culture of win at all costs is somehow linked to male oppression is outrageous and dishonest. The world of athletics-- especially gymnastics-- is full of female coaches and parents who are equally responsible, let alone the world of dance and figure skating. Cheap shot, NY Times. You should have simply said "coaches".
5
NIKE and Alberto Salazar are the antithesis of athletic evil: There is nothing they will do to not win and make buckets of cash doing so, even if they treat athletes horribly.
I'm stunned most universities still align themselves with this company, which has a history of employee work abuses abroad and athletic mistreatment everywhere. But they fork out a lot of money to college coaches, who in turn think like NIKE: anything for a paycheck, so universities keep aligning themselves with the swoosh.
2
I think the writer intends to use the word "definition," and not "antithesis."
Ironic that Nike chose Salazar to lead this team. In his own time, he was a spectacular choker.
1
Mary Cain's physical and mental health suffered greatly under huge pressure applied by adults to maximize her athletic performance. Mary Cain's experience was very dramatic. She crumpled under the pressure of a very high profile program designed to produce world class athletes. In Ms. Cain's case, coaching methods applied backfired. Her physical and mental health eroded and her athletic performance suffered. When balancing Mary Cain's health against athletic performance, athletic performance won...until it didn't.
Americans idolize star athletes. Parents want their kids to become sports idols and will push kids to extremes. The same sort of pressure adults brought to bear on Mary Cain falls on kids in a wide variety of sports - often without regard to whether those kids are world class athletes. Neither Nike nor Salazar invented America's infatuation with star athletes. Rather, Nike and Salazar sponsored a program geared to maximize running performance. Period.
Until we parents exercise healthy judgment regarding the role that sports play in our kids' lives, kids will suffer under unhealthy pressures to perform in sports regardless of the effect on their well being. It's much easier to blame a large corporation like Nike or a zealot like Salazar than it is to examine our culture and our individual responsibility as parents.
5
At least half of the wrestling team in my high school lived under constant pressure during wrestling season to be ever thinner, to make the varsity wrestling team and compete at state. None of them ever claimed to have been abused, nor have I ever heard anyone use that word about wrestlers. But even back then it seemed to me like a terrible idea--giving teen-aged boys this powerful incentive to starve themselves.
8
@Answers to Questions No One Asked
In college one of my friends was a former wrestler. I never knew much about the sport until meeting him, and I was so disturbed to learn about the lengths he and his teammates went to to meet weight.
5
@Sara Horton I know! Two of my high school boyfriends were wrestlers and one of them was close to 5'9" and wrestled at 127 and he went from this handsome, fit and well-built guy to a sunken-cheeked wisp of himself during wrestling season. He never complained but i know he felt of pressure (much of it self-imposed) because his older brother was an Olympic wrestler. I always wondered how many high school wrestlers developed eating disorders after they stopped wrestling. Maybe very few, I don't know. A lot of jockeys deal with the same kind of caloric restrictions but most of them are grown-ups at least.
1
Would great female athletes of the 20th century like Babe Didrikson, Billie Jean King, and Althea Gibson had shots at greatness of Nike got its greedy mitts on them?
4
It was very brave of this young woman to speak out. Thank you NYT for giving her a chance to share her story and message.
6
This is an even bigger issue than stated here. I was a collegiate runner, with three varsity letters in cross country. I had teammates who were on US national teams. I lined up next to Alberto Salazar at starting line of the PAC-8 championships. I never heard a coach tell a male runner to lose weight. When I got to grad school at Stanford, I met several national class women on their cross country team. They all were rail thin, struggled with stress fractures, and didn’t menstruate.
A few years ago I met a woman whose story is very similar to Mary Cain’s. In her early high school years she was the fastest of her age in the country. In the country. She smashed course records and meet records regularly. Still she was pressured to lose weight. She stress fractured multiple bones. She quit running for a couple of years, fought her own demons and the pressure from sponsors to lose weight, and managed to make the US national team one year. But despite recognizing it early and fighting the culture as best she could, her body took a beating.
I have a neighbor whose daughter won 4 high school state championships in one year, and was a collegiate All-American as a freshman. She also struggled with stress fractures and had to quit early in her college days.
Here’s the real tragedy. The first story was in the 1970s. The second was in the 1980s. The third was in the 1990s. This has been going on for forty years on a consistent basis. Bravo to Mary Cain for speaking out so publicly.
33
A similar performance reduction happened to the Olympic snowboarder Shaun White. He listened to “experts” who told him he could better and stronger by hiring all of these supposed “coaches” for this, that and the other. At the next olympics he had his worst performance ever with no medals. All he needed to do was keep doing what he had been doing since he started snowboarding, instead he paid and listened to these leeches and shysters.
3
I would never trust a company that is only in it for their own gain. They will use you until you are nothing but an empty bag.
5
Smarten up NIKE leadership: take this opportunity to hire Mary Cain, train her to become the best trainer ever, enroll more women and move on!
3
Nike! Seriously?? Abominable! He should be fired immediately and your program needs a major overhaul with medical experts not a bunch of males with no health care knowledge.
1
Reading this article, I am reminded of a talented young female athlete on an elite varsity college team during the 1970's who asked her coach, a woman with decades of playing and experience in competition, what she should do to improve her game. The coach told her to gain weight. This player was a brilliant but tense student; training winning or competing in athletics was how she coped. She measured all her foods, quantifying her intake at every meal, and punished herself when she diverted from her self-imposed plant. Her periods had more or less stopped. Her response to the coach's comment, however, bluntly delivered, was very emotional and defensive. It took many years before this girl, now woman, accepted her body as needing more nourishment and more weight.
Ms. Cain's situation wasn't self-induced, but the resulting physical and emotional problems sound awfully similar. Cudo's to her for figuring it out before she caused herself irreparable harm, and for speaking out. Perhaps she's got a future in coaching. We need more women who get the female athlete.
5
Mary is probably too young to remember Kathy Ormsby, the distinguished NC State runner who threw herself off a bridge during a 10K race in 1986. She became paralyzed and never ran again.
When Salazar was winning the NY marathon, I formed the impression that he was a fanatic, an individual who would do anything to win. At that level, it is about winning. But at what cost? The latest disclosures about Salazar are not surprising.
Mary's physique is not typical of elite female runners, but her performance spoke volumes. Not every elite runner should model themselves after East African runners.
Many professional athletes have enjoyed significant success by practicing "load management"--training and playing less and adhering to a healthy dietary and weight regimen.
Many elite female athletes have undergone similar physical and psychological issues.
Mary is a survivor, and her story will no doubt influence the way coaches manage their talented but youthful charges.
4
@Andrew Shin I so well remember when Kathy Ormsby jumped. So awful. Mary Cain's article brought that all back to me as well. Salazar's own health was grossly impacted by his fanaticism. Both easy to see why Nike hired him, yet hard to believe that they would.
2
It's courageous, outspoken, heroic young women, like the Greta Thunberg's and Mary Cain's, who step back and ponder, then rise to the murky surfaces of our market-driven culture and society, clearly articulating and redefining both messengers and messages.
Maybe, hopefully, more of us in the age categories of their parents and grandparents will listen..?
This is a culture-wide issue, and behind it is profit.
I live a mile from the Nike Beaverton, OR "Campus". It has been, and continues to be in a never-ending, multi-year build out and growth expansion. More and more buildings and facilities appear, destroying what was a few years ago a park-like setting.
4
I first saw Mary Cain run as a remarkably talented runner about 6 years ago, and it's sad to see her potential come to this. I can't speak to the corporate sponsorship part, but I can speak of the psychological and physiological aspects of elite-level running and the difference between men and women. Short point--there is a significant difference in both the psychology and physiology, and I think coaches have to evolve out of their gender-neutral (usually with males in mind) approach to coaching elite middle and long distance runners. I was a Division I 800 meter runner who eventually ran an Olympic Trials qualifying time on one lucky day, but I was also lucky to have a coach who recognized me for the individual I was and not just some cog in a wheel. And my memory of the female distance runners on the team is that very few menstruated regularly. I remember thinking, what price are they paying with their bodies that guys didn't have to worry about? Two other points: elite runners of a certain age will remember Julie and Mary Shea from the Raleigh, NC area about 40 years ago and what happened to them. Have we learned nothing? Secondly, would Mary Cain's experience been different with a female coach?
3
Salazar is so incompetent and should not be allowed to coach anyone in the future. This is so sad because anyone who is involved in sports should know the basics of nutrition and building strength. He did not. Heck - any recreational runner at Nike should know better.
3
Mary Cain is courageous, persuasive and very articulate. I wish her future success in whatever she chooses and, more importantly, happiness.
5
You are so brave. Go girl. Go!
7
Shameful, while Congress twiddles their thumbs, this is going on? Shameful and the fact Nike refuses to comment is even more shameful.
3
Congress is doing nothing about a lot of things; this is not on their plates, it’s on us.
This is such an important voice. My son was also a distance runner and we had the pleasure of seeing Mary run when she was running for Bronxville. Just a delight to see.
Athletics at an elite level are tough. But we need to remember that athletes are humans. There is a mind and body component to this...a human component. Clearly this got lost.
I highly encourage Mary to continue to use her voice and make it heard. Her message is important for sports.
Mary, thank you for your courage and your honesty.
4
Is it a stretch to compare Alberto Salazar w/ William Strampel, formerly Dean of Osteopathic Medicine MSU and L. Nassar, c.v. not required? Or is it a Slippery Slope?
Did near universal acceptance of patterns & practices past lead to wide perception of a cutting edge authority figure, then as abruptly reversed in a humiliating fall from grace?
Like Icarus, has Salazar flown too close to the flame of regulatory rules, limitations, and infractions in the red line of anecdotally testing fragile human endurance of underage teens in a personal quest to achieve optimization of winning at all cost?
Does Nike continue to see Product Marketing as a primary objective in subsidizing competitive racing teams as in Formula One Racing?
No one thinks Alberto Salazar is a bad dude. But is there a line crossed between optimizing controlled human performance and experimental anecdotal methodology?
1
NYT hid her point about the weightloss. Her point is that her coach was evaluating her based on male body fat % levels. Which creates an unhealthy woman. Men especially elite male athletes have much lower body fat %, and in 2013 there weren't apps at the tips of your fingers to explain the benefits and draw backs. Coaches of a variety of sports are guilty of this practice but it's very common in track and swimming. It's easy to think that if you change the body weight it will make the individual faster, less to drag around.
The people complaining about #Metoo here aren't getting it. This is the equivalent of a doctor giving a woman for prostate checkup and then her dieing of breast cancer. And then people saying... well the doctor did the best they could.
13
Boycott Nike. I do.
5
If it's not making your athletes better, then the coaches have a clear reason to stop doing this, unless they're stupid.
I imagine the more likely situation is that this strategy makes some athletes world-class, and breaks down others. Nike needs to decide whether it wants to have a reputation of achieving victory at whatever cost or having a more moderate approach to success.
1
What a brave young woman! She is an absolute inspiration.
This is not a hit piece of any kind. It is simply the truth of her experience. It is also a testament to her upbringing and her parents that she could recognize the brokenness of the system and actually act on that recognition.
She has my admiration.
5
Mary's experience sounds too much like what happeed in the old USSR
6
When your Nike boss tells you to do something damaging to yourself or someone else, it might be a good time to find a new job.
3
From my vantage point, Mary Cain is a winner - no matter what happens on the track. Breaking free of the abuse and going public took great inner strength and poise. As a father of two daughters and even more simply as someone who cares about our humanity, I say thank you, Mary Cain!
Nike, you have the financial and cultural power to do more than just make feel-good ads. You can learn from Mary's story (and your part in it) and fully commit to redefining what it means to truly be a winner - in sports and in the world. Just do it!
6
You go, woman!
3
Just went back to watching that 2014 World Junior 3000, where she got out of a Kenyan box along the backstretch and blew them away! Never saw anyone at any level do that to any group of Kenyans! Sad that a promising career was destroyed.
5
Meanwhile, NFL players have a life expectancy that is 20-30 years LESS than the general population. I'm not sure how this article about the sacrifices that elite competition require of the human body became a "male coaches are bad" hit-piece.
7
@Jeff No, that is not what the article is about.
2
Wow- thank you so much Mary for opening up about a very personal and painful journey. Your powerful words really spoke to me in a way not many opinion pieces do. I hope you go on to continue not just your running career but consider coaching as well!
3
Oregon Project a disgrace
3
Mary Cain, you are amazing. The only way to change the system is for someone like you to go in and start to educate.
Please consider coaching one day. Shame on NIke. Shame on the system that destroys young talented woman like you.
7
Misogyny wearing a different cloak.
5
all this to sell sneakers
3
The United States has really lost it's way when it comes to high level athletics. Young people that have an extraordinarily high level of talent are being pushed too far. What is the ultimate goal here, money, fame? The general population is complicit in some small way - we are so hungry for entertainment that we ignore clear wrongdoings by companies, colleges/universities, professional sports leagues, etc. It starts in the little leagues and only gets worse as kids age.
Sports are a great way to bring people together and celebrate the pure awesomeness of the human body. We have gone way beyond a mere celebration. Enough already.
6
Deeply sorry, honestly cannot read the story. Too close, but stay strong and do you and don’t let anyone call you, “crazy.”
5
Great lesson for all women & girls.
It's very important for girls to stop looking for daddy.
It's very important for women to stop looking for a man to solve their problems.
Personal Responsibility!
5
@P&L Yes, let's make it the responsibility of the teenage girl student and not the responsibility of the adult coach who is in charge. Well done!
2
@Nancy
oh, I think that is where parenting comes in.
Many thanks.
My gut reaction is that this the training regimen was based on bad science, not purposeful gender based discrimination. All elite athletes are pushing themselves to the razor's edge of performance and bodies tend to break when they are pushed that hard. Being a world class athlete is a sacrifice.
The greatest coach ever -- John Wooden -- was reputed to never have used the word "win". His players, many of whom became successful in fields other than athletics, extoll Wooden's approach to them as people and competitors.
Sports is rife with extremes (doping, cheating, overtraining, brutality, etc) in the single minded pursuit of one result: "winning" at all costs. And what is that winning? Getting the financial rewards and PR fame that are the extrinsic trapping and superficial appearance of "victory."
Intrinsic value? Personal bests? Development of personal character and lifelong resilience?
Where is today's John Wooden? And what corporation would sponsor such an educator?
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@Robert Stern There are many John Wooden's, but they do not receive the same attention as the high profile college programs.
Brett Ledbetter and University of Florida women's soccer coach Becky Burleigh advocate much of what awooden was about in their book "What Drives Winning". It is about the process and not the end result.
I coach soccer goalkeepers ages 8-18 and I emphasize the development of the individual and that they are defined by their effort, not whether they won or lost.
https://whatdriveswinning.com/videos/
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@Robert Stern
Look no further than Duke's Mike Krzyzewski.
10
@Robert Stern
I loved Coach Wooden of Martinsville, Indiana.
However, everyone knows that Wooden had a fixer in the person of wealthy developer Sam Gilbert who performed all kinds of pecuniary services for mega-star players.
13
Anytime you are 'the extreme', expect to pay the price. Skiers who ski the unskiable.... until... Happens to men too NYT's.
6
Thank you Mary Cain for your bravery in speaking out.
My daughter is 11 and a track and cross country athlete who competes at the national level. She loves her chosen sport and hopes—no, expects—to continue competing at a high level into adulthood. She is still so young to believe the world of sports will be as easy for her in the future as it is now. Like the push for women in finance and engineering, as Cain advocates we need to see women taking leadership roles in the business of sports—commissioners, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and investors (Serena Williams, that’s you).
4
I am one of many who was excited to see what you might do as a runner as you moved past your incredible feats in high school. This story brought me to tears and then when I saw Shalane Flanagan's apologetic tweet I cried again. I hope that your story will protect others and that your running career continues to bring you joy!
6
Elite young athletes change coaches all the time. Nike does it this way because it is successful for their best athletes. Unfortunately, this girl was harmed by the Nike program. It was on her parents to intervene and find her a new coach.
1
"It’s easier to focus on bright new stars, while forgetting about those who faded away. We fetishize the rising athletes, but we don’t protect them. And if they fail to pull off what we expect them to, we abandon them."
^this^ is America when the soldiers return from war. we love our heroes...and don't really want to have to be exposed to their hardships once they're civilians again.
3
This is a complicated issue; each case is different, really. In this case, Salazar sounds like an abusive coach who only got his job because of his own athletic success. Coaches - wake up! Being a good coach is not just being able to demonstrate proper technique or helping an athlete achieve proper fitness; at least half is psychological -- understanding the athlete as a person with his or her insecurities, hopes and dreams, etc. Clearly, in this case at least (but really in all cases) you have to deal with the whole person to help him or her achieve success (and coaches that means looking at your own behavior first, not just focusing on the athlete's issues). Another problem is the insane levels of competitiveness that drive the mistreatment of athletes. Parents of competitive athletes are part of that. We've all been at a youth sports contest of some sort where some parent or parents are going mental over some missed call by a ref who's really just a guy finding a way to get out of the house on the weekends. I was at one where a parent screamed at his kid for all to hear, "What's wrong with you?" That guy needs to think about that question himself. Every parent with an athletic son or daughter should take a step back and ask "What's this really all about?" Hint: it's not about you. Get some perspective. Maybe start with the fact that 99% of kids are not going to play professional. Get over it already.
4
This whole story is sickening, but to pretend that the environment that Cain endured is specific to Nike and Nike alone is not just plain wrong, it's dangerous. As a recent grad from a very successful Division I program, any collegiate athlete will tell you that the pressure to lose weight for speed is everywhere - and it starts in high school. I was lucky enough to train under a program that emphasized health above performance, but the number of athletes at DI institutions that are being told to do exactly what Mary was told to do is staggering.
This is absolutely not a problem unique to Nike. This is not a problem unique to professional sports. This is a problem that begins at a very young age and is continually perpetuated by high school runners seeing the unhealthy bodies of certain elites and believing that skinny is equivocal to success. Unhealthy athletes being abused by coaches come from EVERY brand and elite groups all over the nation sponsored by different companies are pushing their athletes in this exact way. If we continue to pretend that it is only the mega-brands that perpetuate this attitude, we are willingly ignoring the fact that disordered eating is ingrained in to the running culture. We overlook that this abuse starts young, as long as it produces fast times. The minute an athlete slows down, we move to the next phenom.
Disordered eating is the distance communities worst kept secret, and to say it is unique to just Nike is ignoring the larger issue.
9
Amen. But the next question...what is the nature of gender equality if the difference is rooted precisely in the nature of gender itself, requiring different approaches and circumstances?
This whole concept of one size fits all is ridiculous. Whether it's training, nutrition, or how you run a business - the single minded masculine way of doing things should not dominate all areas of life. I'm so happy to hear Mary Cain speaking out like so many other women in other areas of life. It's time our voices are heard and that we look at doing things differently.
For those of you who are looking for guidance on training in a healthy way and avoiding the no pain no gain mantra I highly recommend Body, Mind, and Sport by Dr. Douillard. There is a better way.
1
Nike engages in unscrupulous behavior, I'm shocked, shocked!
Thanks for the good reporting, I haven't bought a Nike product in 30 years, and don't expect that to change.
4
It is painfully clear that many of these athletic programs require adult supervision. At the very least, an accredited athletic review board could be created to provide peer review or consultation of a trainer's methods, akin to a medical review board of a treatment plan. Surely we can devise some outside review mechanism that can advocate for the participant when these issues come up.
But as Ms. Cain points out quite clearly, the focus of these programs is for athletes to achieve greatness, ripe for commercial profit. If these programs are actually hurting a contender's potential, then those lost potential profits by the athlete should be something considered in any litigation against abusive acts.
3
Thank you, Mary. I have a daughter who is a D1 swimmer, and from my heart I thank you and all of the women who are speaking out right now about women's athletics and the abuses inherent in the whole system. You are the way forward.
7
The part I find interesting is the logic that says that the same weight calculation works the same for everyone. I'm sure that the weight that Ms. Cain was supposed to reach was perfect for someone else with her height, but obviously, it didn't work for her. Trusting data without arbitrary observation is easy and can pass as objective and therefore "fair" and "not wrong". In retrospect, it seems fairly clear that she needed differently goals suited for her. This is not just true of sports but also education, workplace environments and many other situations where it's just too convenient to blindly follow guidelines and then blame them for doing what amounts to perpetrating abuse.
1
Unfortunately this is not new, I am 50. I started competitive running at 10. All through HS we were told super skinny means super fast. One coach kept track of what we ate. I did not have a period for years and have suffered from lower leg fractures my whole adult life.
6
Hear ye, hear ye.
A coach's number one responsibility is the HEALTH and WELLBEING of their athlete. No other priority matters - including 'winning'.
Many coaches, don't think of their athletes' well being. They coach for their own prestige or they coach for 'wins' or to sustain a 'winning program'. Winning is NOT a coach's number one priority. Sure, you may want to win. You may need to win. But it should require violating responsibility 1. And by the way, it is completely possible and feasible for a coach to have a winning program without undermining their number one priority.
A coach's win percentage or the number of 'star' athletes that s/he has, does not necessarily mean that the coach is a good coach.
I encourage anybody that is unclear as to what constitutes a GOOD coach, to read anything written by John Wooden.
I thank Mary Cain for coming out. Run on, Mary.
~ From an ex-coach & fellow runner.
7
The well being is first and foremost a parents duty. To not be aware of the needs of growing athletes - male or female - and not ensure any programs will competently and professionally support those needs is dereliction of parental duty.
4
@Sarah
We can't all be experts in a given area... that is why people turn to those with knowledge to mentor and coach. Parents can try to be diligent but they are unlikely to be advantaged in knowing better than the so-called experts.
Nike and Salazar WERE the experts and presumed by most parents to be ethically sound. Seems they were not and they were by reputation, status and intimidation, able to keep that out of the foreground. Parents may push their children to excel but they very much depend on coaches and other experts to know what the safe upper-parameter limit is for a given athlete.
3
@Sarah
It takes a village, Sarah.
And in that village, there are a small, privileged few that invariable are given special access to our children. Could be Doctors, teachers, coaches. And because our children are vulnerable, we hold these special people to whom we give our trust, to a higher standard. This doesn't mean that parents duties are off-loaded to others. But it does mean that we trust these professionals to do right by their charges.
Pick up any coaching manual. Ask a member of any coaching certification board. Ask any coach that knows his craft - they'll all tell you the same thing - the health and well being of the athlete is priority #1. Not unlike a doctor's oath is, first and foremost; do no harm.
Sarah - you do realize that Mary was an pretty much an adult when she was training with Alberto Salazar...right? You do know that many college athletes are in their 20's, right?
1
Where I live in Michigan, many families take high school sports to the extreme because that's the only way they can make college affordable. The endless time sent practicing and traveling. The fees, the injuries, the pain are not endured because of the love of sports, it's because our system of paying for higher education has become just another dog-eat-dog competition that conservatives are so fond of.
If, god-willing, the athlete makes it to the next round, they become fodder for the for-profit college sports marketing machine. Then they fight to make it to "the pros" or whatever equivalent applies to their sport. At that point, whatever is left of them is exploited some more by the billionaire owners and sports networks.
Face it: the whole system is corrupt from stem to stern, and it's the athletes who bear the brunt of it. Anyone who argues that "they are being paid to play kids games" hasn't a clue how the pay pales in comparison to the lifetime of pain.
6
Maybe, but’s not cheap at all to participate in sports at this level. Methinks a reordering of priorities may be in order.
Parents get caught up in the winning and then make rationalizations like this while their children pay the price.
1
Dear Mary Cain,
As a other of two daughters, I really deeply appreciate your courage in sharing your experience. This is horrifying. I consider myself warned if any of my daughters come under the influence of sadistic coaches and corporations like this. I come from a goddess-worshipping culture with a history of female athletes where the body ideal for women is strong, not thin, and an adolescent girl losing her periods due to harsh training will send red flags everywhere. It is very frightening to hear that is the norm in sports training in the US.
Thank you for speaking out, possibly at a risk to yourself and your career. And I do hope you shine again, not only for your athletic ability but also for blazing the trail to make the lives of future female athletes safer.
5
Nike destroy the lives of the workers in their factories with long hours and starvation wages. They destroy the lives of the athletes that they use to promote the brand. This is how modern economies work -- profit at all cost.
No different from Amazon or any other giant corporation.
4
At the end, it says that all the athletes will be investigated. What about the coaches that worked and supported Salazar's methods both in respect to the treatment of the athletes and the drug issues? Why doesn't congress step in as they recently did with the abuse of athletes in Gymnastics, Swimming, etc.? This is also a form of abuse. Where is the USOC?
7
As a society we place entirely too much emphasis on athletics - and not nearly enough on learning skills such as critical thinking. I have never purchased anything with Nike "swoosh" - partly because they have a history of exploitation of labor, but partly because I do not understand why people pay huge sums of money to advertise a product from a mega-corporation. It's all a gigantic con game. I feel for these young women - they are being exploited -as are many young men in colleges who will never make the "pros" but leave college with no degree and no opportunities.
5
J
jskinner
Oceanside, NY | Pending Approval
College sports is big business and routinely exploit the young men and women who participate in them.
Another point to consider: Why should any who can excel at running, or any other athletic event qualify for a “tuition free scholarship”? What do these physical activities have to do with education? Nothing. All students should pay for their education and any student who “works” for a university as an athlete should be paid for his or her work. Furthermore, these athletes should form unions to protect their rights. And if a university wants to employ any young person who has no interest in attending a school’s academic programs, then the university should be entitled to do so. Remove the false category of “student athlete.” The amalgam of the two is only a ruse to exploit young people.
3
Great piece, I would love to see more video opinion pieces like this but I have one criticism: the background music overwhelmed the speaker and made it difficult to understand all the content on the first viewing.
2
Nike's CEO should step down...
4
@CM
From this article
>In October, Nike’s chief executive resigned.
@Koid great news!!! thank you!
There's so much support for Title 9 and what it's done for girls, but little attention paid to the increadinh pressure of coaches and media for girls to be thin, for so called aesthetic or performance reasons, since Title 9 was enacted. This additonal pressure on girls leads them right to eating disorders and fragile health, health stolen from them by adults. It took me untill middle age to get myself into a clinic forbtreatment for taking laxatives, purging and overtraining to lose weight for "better performance". The waiting room at that eating disorder clinic was filled with mothers with their daughters in athletic gear. It's time for a national conversation on how to give girls the rights to feed and love their bodies.
3
I have been around dancers for the last 8 years, when my son began learning classical Ballet at age 7. I have made friends with a lot of the mothers who's daughters are in Ballet. You hear the same thing in dance you hear in sports for girls: Thinner-thinner-thinner. The sad thing is, some of these parents don't stand up to the teacher's constant harping about weight and the child suffers.
4
I am sorry, Mary Cain. I am sorry that the male dominated leadership of Nike made so many bad decisions in regards to your training experience. I am sorry that such an industry exists, obsessed with using athletes to make money. I am sorry for Alberto Salazar's terrible judgement. And I am sorry that it took so long for this to be revealed. But at the end of your op-ed piece, you courageously offer a solution. Change is needed. Significant change. I can't help but think from my small living room far away, that it's you that needs to play a central role in the next chapter and you that could take on a leadership role to help athletes and not harm them. Maybe this terrible experience will ultimately result in an impressive and capable leader. You.
4
I simply don’t get how the parents didn’t have an inkling what was going on for three years. If anything they could just look at how their daughter appeared and performed in her races.
It seemed like they didn’t ask any questions about this program - it probably would not have been too hard to learn there were no professionals on staff.
Parents, your first obligation is to your child’s overall well being, not their wins or even their dreams.
7
Thanks for this story, I am an old athlete without much talent, but I do keep going. Just watched Mary Cain's video. All good wishes going to Mary Cain, who is brave to speak up for herself, and for her fellow women athletes. Nike messes with women at their peril. I'm looking at a pair of Nike's across the room right now, and I'm ditching them. Not even to Goodwill, they are going in the trash can. I'm not taking a wait and see attitude. If Nike comes around and displays a different approach to working with women athletes then will reconsider. There is power with the purse.
5
Blaming this one runner's decline on "men", Nike, or even Alberto Salazar rings disingenuous to me. From what I understand, Mary, her family, and her sponsors all entered into this arrangement with their eyes open to join a team tasked with producing the fastest women in the world. They were specifically, by definition, testing the limits of the human body.
These athletes are at the top of the top of the top of their fields. And these programs are designed to do one thing: produce winners. They put a number of athletes through rigorous training and see who makes it. Every year hundreds of people are spit out the back of this competition machine. Mary Cain is no different, except she was so near to the top when she was spit out of the machine. I have been involved both with competitive running and competitive cycling, and both sports share this same collective behavior.
Nike invests millions in trying to make these people faster. They gain nothing if the athletes' bodies break down EXCEPT if some of the athletes withstand the training and thrive and become faster. Let's not forget that we all watch the Olympics every year to see the fastest compete. We are all a part of the same rewards system that Mary was chasing. And Nike is not in the business of producing middle-level healthy bodies - they are in the business of producing winners.
4
You obviously misread the story. Young women in their teens or early 20s who are invited to join an elite training program will trust the coaches, just like young boys in their teens or early 20s will. These are still kids. They trust these-called experts. Also as was reported in the story, the Nike program uses research and data on the development of male athletes on females. It's not a one size fits all kind of thing.
1
@Jeff telling an athlete who is already lean and thin to get “thinner and thinner” isn’t going to produce a winner. Encouraging her to get STRONGER - which usually means putting *on* weight in the form of more lean muscle tissue, or adjusting her training to increase fast-twitch muscle fiber - is how it’s done. Being lighter doesn’t automatically make you faster, and forcing your body into technical starvation via caloric/energy deficit simply depletes your muscles and makes you slower and weaker. I was a competitive gymnast when I was young, and my male coaches gave me the same misguided (and honestly dangerous) direction these runners received; it ruined my physical and emotional health, and I nearly lost my life to anorexia. As another commenter pointed out, kids trust their coaches, and these “experts” should know better.
3
@Laura
I most certainly did not misread the story and your ad hominem does not advance your argument.
I am in complete agreement that young people will trust the coaches, and rightfully so. Alberto Salazar and Nike had a proven track record of producing Olympians. They aren't "so-called experts" - they are experts. Thousands of men and women runners every year are trying to get into Nike Oregon and other similar groups.
I think there is a collective delusion that Nike was in the business of producing healthy, well-adjusted people who also run. That is not the case. Nike was tasked with testing the limits of the human body and finding the fastest of the fast.
2
Best of luck to you Mary. I hope your next chapter is awesome.
To everyone else-The focus on championships and monetizing everything is sucking all the fun out of sports. Remember when it used to be about fun, yes competition, but really, it was just a blast to play and watch. I really miss those days.
2
This was a powerful opinion piece. Thank you Mary for your courage, your bravery, and your leadership. I wish you the best of luck in your next adventure, you are going to make a difference!
3
I don't get the emphasis on thinness over everything else. When I bicycled from Seattle to Boston after graduating from college, I gained five pounds--which was almost certainly muscle, and which was a substantial gain for someone who was 125 at the start of that ride.
Salazar should be banned from coaching for good. Empathy, and the ability to listen to others and draw them out, seem like necessary qualities for a coach. From the sound of it, he lacks both.
Some knowledge of human biology would help, too. Anyone who lets a young woman break five bones without questioning his methods shows incompetence.
As for Mary Cain, I wish her success in whatever she does--including fighting back against this sort of nonsense--and I hope she has a great life. She's in a good position to teach others.
5
As Mary Cain said, "This system is sick". It's all about money for Nike and other greedy money sucking corporate monsters. At everyone else's expense.
1
Excellent article. This is quality journalism. It's also the good power of the internet as this story and the video can be shared with everyone. There should be zero secrets in these modern times. I hope this runner has great success as she moves to the next chapter of her running career.
2
The question is: why would The NOP people tinker with a "system"/runner that already is breaking records?she clearly was at the top her game for her age. The arbitrary weight number is surprising because the coaches have enough experience to know its a result of optimum conditioning, not the other way around. If you add unspecified and unknown substances to the process, like those used by Salazar, it becomes a crap shoot between getting caught and getting the best time.
2
Because they are being groomed like child performers in any entertainment or music industry. It is difficult to make laws to protect children from being shown in public. Nike wants the advertising dollars. I think the rise of Serena Williams has gone a long way to change what the elite role models should be or should look like. Even in the men’s field of soccer someone at the top like Lionel Messi who doesn’t fit the mold changes coaches mindsets and advertising image of a perfect body size. There’s still a lot of work to be done.
1
I would love to hear similar stories from other young female phenoms (e.g. Missy Franklin). Do not let their stories fizzle out!
4
Another reason to wear New Balance.
7
Brooks!
Any defense of the coaches or victim blaming is way over the edge and despicable.
3
Is anyone really surprised by the story of this young girl? So much courage for such a young lady.
5
First and foremost, I hope this is the first I hear from Mary Cain, not the last. A strong, intelligent woman who knows her own mind, we need many more like her and I hope she gets involved in mentoring.
Secondly -- what a sick, sick thing. A bunch of men decide they should be the ones to control young women's bodies to the point of desexing them and rendering them infertile, perhaps permanantly. It is like a particularly perverse Greek myth or Grimm's Brothers tale.
Between Larry Nasser and Alberto Salazar, I am beginning to think there should be no men coaches or administrators with power over young girls and women.
15
These are the sorts of things the U.S.'s particular, warped style of capitalism produces. It's all about more and more acquisition, or in an older parlance, the love of money. You know what's said about the love of money - it's the root of all evil. And that unbridled greed leads to these abuses...
3
There is a story about a gypsy who was terriffic with horses. He could train them to do anything. One day he got the idea that maybe he could train them to go without eating.
Each day, he fed them less and less.
Always, right at the edge of success, the horses died.
But he kept trying So close.
2
This makes me so mad. Stop comparing girls. I always weighed more than my peers...muscle and “big” bones does that, but I was also faster than they were.
3
Can we name just one ethical multimillion company ?
PS: Mary, You are a beautiful Human and extremely brave to tell Your story and expose this kind of abuse, endorsed by a corporation. Sorry for what all You went through, hoping life will place you in much better prospects for your Gifts.
3
That’s terrible.
Such a loss, and a life ruined. Hope she can find opportunities outside sports as seems her chances at success there are gone.
Sadly so much in “sports” today feels like child abuse or carelessly ambitious sport advocacy.
1
This story is reminiscent of the infamous East German women's swim team at the '72 Olympics who were doped up with steroids so much they looked like NFL linebackers. And they won just about everything. Of course, the female athletes suffered massive physical and mental problems the rest of their lives. But, the DDR won and that was all that counted. Like Nike.
2
Ironic since Salazar himself experienced physical decline at the peak of his career attributed to overtraining. He even ran himself into cardiac arrest. For awhile he was speaking out publicly about the dangers of overtraining. What happened? https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/sports/playmagazine/02play-physed.html
4
This shows once again how far people will get from the natural world. These female runners stop having periods. Red flag-someone is pushing you to do something unnatural. When is the U.S. going to become a caring country?
2
So, is Nike still "the greatest team in the world"? I don't think so. It's an abusive, cheating team.
The research on womens’ physiology was articulated by many pioneer women in sports medicine since the 1980’s. Why are their findings not included in all coaching organizations? Read Barbara Drinkwater’s scholarship for example. http://www.multibriefs.com/briefs/acsm/active3-10.htm
1
When looks at the latest two phenoms in the now defunct NOP (Nike Oregon Project): Sifan Hassan and Konstanze Klosterhalfen you see the extreme that apparently the NOP and Alberto Salazar sought.
Beyond thin - emaciated.
And both are or were headed for the same fate as Cain.
1
Sing girl sing .Do not be afraid to tell it all.
1
Why are women not allowed to look like women? And women (like men) come in all body types. To assume that an athlete can only perform well in a certain body type is to deny the proof that is right before our eyes. Watch the Olympics and notice that the winners are many different heights and body types. Apparently, being fast does not mean that only one 'kind' can thrive.
2
Misogyny takes many forms and every one of them sucks.
Weighing the girls in front of each other?! (I suspect they didn't do that with the males.) That is abuse and social sadism.
Shame on Nike.
6
@SMcStormy So why did the girls put up with it?
1
@SMcStormy They do it to males as well
1
So proud of you, Mary. Sports should be about healthy personal achievement and personal PRs, not money.
Muscle weighs more than fat. Power is more than just an arbitrary number on a scale.
Please continue to speak your truth.
4
Can someone please write part II of this very disturbing story: WHY is Nike destroying these wonderful, talented girls, and not providing and encouraging the care that their elite bodies require and their good instincts dictate?
4
great piece
good luck, mary
people love to hear stories of self sacrifice and becoming a champion. I have watched and read so many bio's of people who sacrificed all to achieve success. but we forget or don't even know of those that didn't succeed. They just don't make for good marketing.
2
Several comments mention Sifan Hassan. One big difference is that Ms. Hassan came to Salazar as an adult, and with interaction and support of her national team staff from The Netherlands. Mary Cain was a teenager, on her own, and not a physically matured adult.
It will be interesting, as 2020 unfolds,to see where the WADA individual investigations into excessive use of asthma meds, thyroid hormone supplementation where not medically indicated, etc, will lead.
The athletes don’t leave a big name like Nike Project and the coaches because it tarnished the athletes name. In her shoes, as the upcoming best in the world, you can’t leave. If you leave, other coaches out there won’t pick her up as an athlete because either something is wrong with her or she’s not a coachable athlete. This puts into question the athletes ability. “There must be something wrong with them if Nike can’t coach her and she either left or they told her to leave.” Plus starting over with a new coach, picking up the pieces and building a new platform in the midst of your golden years as an athlete is a huge road block to success in an athletic profession.
Also Track and Field falls short with the IOC information on Red-S aka the “female triad” syndrome.
1
A very tragic video/story, this should not be happening in the USA and even the World today.
Ban Nike from all competitive sports. Do not purchase any Nike products. I have not bought any Nike products for at least 3 years because I was not of fan of how they manufacture their products and their marketing, basically dominating college sport apparel.
Why can't they just measure the results and let that be the metric. If a woman or girl is winning races why should it matter what her weight is?
3
Hey Mary,
Thank you for speaking out. I remember reading about you when you started with Nike and thinking Nike doesn't treat women runners like we use to, i.e. lighter is better, and assumed there would be women coaches and nutritionists. This is wild. I'm sorry I had such blind faith that the system worked for women and was not rife with misogyny. You're a courageous woman, how dare men take advantage of your adolescence and dedication. I'll continue to follow you and support your efforts.
2
What a brave young woman. I'm sure she will be punished yet again for telling the truth. You can see how thin she was. That Salazar denies things is no surprise. Nike, shame on you.
Abuse is rampant in our society. What used to be "gratuitous violence" is now on prime time TV nightly. There is no amount of violence that is objectionable. The "wrestling" industry is fraught with injuries and no one cares. Football and boxing can leave athletes damaged for life. Ski jumpers routinely break bones. Some athletes actually die. Is this "sports?" And, if you question any of this, you are mocked and shamed.
No one's body was meant to be subjected to constant violence. The idea that we can respect human limits seems suspect. This same attitude can be found almost anywhere. Theater performers dare not cancel if they are sick, lest they be criticized as being "unprofessional" (the show must go on) even though no one was meant to scream "Defying Gravity" (for example) eight times a week.
Holistic health says, "take care of your body" but society is still selling the opposite message. Much of this is skewed by a macho attitude of "no pain, no gain." No young woman should lose her period for 3 years without someone (parents?) objecting. The body is screaming -- I'm not OK!
NYT, please follow up on this and give us more articles. Support Mary Cain's push to stop the entire industry from getting away with this kind of behavior. This is also a "me, too" moment.
6
This makes me wonder about Jordan Hasay, another young phenom coached by Salazar before being banned Her debut marathon time was unbelievable for such a young athlete - almost too unbelievable. She has been injured since. Is she yet another casualty of a system that looked the other way while Salazar was employing questionable and even illegal practices and pushing women to the point of breaking down physically and emotionally?
4
Coming from upscale Bronxville, N.Y., Mary Cain was not hurting for money. She didn't HAVE to turn pro as such a young age. I wish she had finished her prep career at Bronxville High (alma mater of Roger Goodell), become a multi-NCAA champion and then turned pro. There was no rush. Sadly, Mary Cain made a career-ending decision.
3
@Richard R. nice victim blaming there, buddy.
4
Just a reminder that the gymnast Katlyn Ohashi tells a similar story about feeling compelled to lose weight. My understanding is that she finally discarded that advice and has performed at a top level at a weight that is fundamentally more healthy for her.
However, it's a bit puzzling that we don't hear similar stories from male athletes - surely there are similar examples?
3
Running fast is not a career. Sports is barely entertainment. What waste of dollars that could be better spent instructing teachers, nurses, and social workers.
5
@vandalfan our priorities are so screwed up due to these high profile media conglomerates destroying all of nature, including us humans, in pursuit of the almighty buck. Makes me understand more and more why Henry David Thoreau went to the woods "...and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
@Anne
Ha... I understand he "went to the woods" just over the dale from his mothers house, from which she daily sent his meals... seems a literal "babe in the woods" with that sort of indulgence, but the idea of it is admirable.
It is interesting that cyclists figured this out decades ago. Cycling also rewards skinnier riders with results in the mountains - lighter weight means faster uphill. But cyclists going for the fastest results discovered that at some point skinnier means becoming slower. And that is the common wisdom in the peloton - light is not necessarily fast. A body needs reserves to be strong and consistent.
1
Where were her parents in all this? It was weirdly obvious--just from the press reports years ago--that sending a naive 17-yr-old away to live with adult professional athletes, under the care of Salazar, who was under a cloud of terrible rumors even them, was a bad call.
I'm happy they rescued her ultimately--and I look forward to what Ms. Cain does next to help young women athletes--she's more a star to me now than she was setting records.
4
I just wanna add that Henry Louis Aaron hit 755 home runs without performance enhancing drugs, strength training, monitored diet, etc. He just simply went out there and naturally did it.
5
Firstly, thank you to Mary Cain for speaking up. We read an article like this and our hearts sink into our stomachs. We know. We know this happens, we know why it happens, we know our girls and women suffer because of it. Are we doing enough to change it? Speaking out helps, we need to use that as momentum to say Enough!!
My mind went to another Nike athlete, a young Canadian tennis player... she made an incredible run at Wimbledon at 17 then she lost a lot of weight and has never regained the form. A co-incidence? Possibly. Tennis is fickle. Or maybe a company like Nike doesn’t restrict itself to official programs. Image is everything.
The medical profession has taken this long to finally realize the tests and standards for humans are all based on the male. That doesn’t work for the female. But getting that through to end user? We need to speed up that process.
sports institutions were never about protecting athletes' health. they were always about creating spectacle and entertainment. athletes everywhere are getting worn and injured. their careers are often short-lived... what is the average age of retirement for athletes? it may be harder on women then on men, but the establishment still demands everything from you in the name of sport -- same as roman times. athletes are our modern gladiators.
1
Mary, I just saw your video after reading the article. I am very touched and wish you all the best for your future, good health, joy and success. You are so courageous and a great role model.
Thanks for sharing your story.
4
As someone with an academic background in both nutrition and exercise physiology this is unbelievable to me. How can an essentially limitlessly funded program like Nike's not have qualified professionals who would see this coming from minute one? Just a couple of points- decreasing performance in someone who is still training and not diagnosed with an unrelated illness is already generally a sign of overtraining (which can be from increasing training volume or decreasing some other physiological factor- like nutrition!- while keeping training volume up.) It's already a red flag and there are physiological ways to check that should be done (just one example- Hear Rate Variability, HRV), most of which don't require an only-Nike-can-afford evaluation.) Young female athletes losing their periods is classic and almost always a sign of too much volume/not enough nutrition. It's a huge red flag and should have led to checks, or just common sense good calorie increases. For this to have gone for 3 years, especially in the wake of everything described in the video, is what I was thinking when I initially said this is unbelievable. How can such a high level team not have professionals who know why this usually happens, send an athlete for the proper medical evaluations and right the ship- in WAY less time than 3 years?? Very similar opinion re bone fractures. Did they never send her for a DEXA scan for bone density? I'd say regulation is an answer- it may be. But boo Nike!
8
Mary Cain paid the price for being part of the win-at-all-costs culture.
Win-at-all-costs is not just about medals but also fame + celebrity = money.
She and the adults around her, Nike coaches and parents, were complicit. She might have been pushed toward unrealistic expectations.
Those expectations were not just Nike's but hers too.
Win-at-all-costs turned into Lose BIG.
Welcome to the real world!
1
Nike declining to comment speaks volumes in this context.
Thank you, Mary, for speaking out. Your courage is inspiring.
5
This is a very moving story . I used to admire Alberto Salazar and the Nike Project .Between this and the doping, I admit my admiration was terribly misplaced..
I truly hope Ms Cain is able to rediscover joy in a sport for which she has so much natural talent. To quote the protagonist in the Alan Sillitoe story The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
"It is a real treat, being a long distance runner"
4
I've not been able to read all the comments, so this point might already have been made by another commenter. That is, we have a society where we encourage everyone to "question authority," but this turns out to be incredibly difficult. We also have a society where "authority or expertise" has inherent power to quash or discourage questions. This arises when, as parents, we send our kids off to daycare, pre-school, regular school, sports camps, overnight camps, etc. One commenter said Ms. Cain's father is a doctor. One might have thought he would have noticed the progressive changes in his daughter, but, when he asked her, she would probably have said "everything's fine." We only need to look at the Larry Nassar case to see how easily it is for kids and their parents to get trapped in a sickening vortex of denial and permanent damage. Even today, as a cancer patient in a well-respected medical center, I am invited to question my doctor, but she really has no time for me, and, ultimately, I have to trust her. The "system" gives me options, but they are very difficult to exercise, with the prospect of a good or better outcome not too likely. For young athletes, or just students, the coach or teacher is assumed to be acting in the individual's best interest, but that assumption is frequently false. The problem is systemic and endemic and difficult to fix.
5
The reputation of Salazar was well known when the Cain family signed with Nike. She could have gone to college on a full scholarship but chose to go PRO at 16. This outcome was predicted by many fans of Track and Field.
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@Patrick Kearns victim blaming.
@Liz B
That's the truth, not victim blaming.
Cain and her physician father could have obtained a college scholarship with the University of Oregon Ducks. She could have obtained a college degree for free, had the college experience, and still been a contender.
They took the money.
2