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Nike announces the end of the Oregon Project after the suspension of Salazar by doping The prodigy, the veteran, the big
When Mary Cain was 16 years old they called the girl a phenomenon in the middle bottom. A cluster of records for youth in the tracks I had made in the athlete faster in the united States. The following year, the coach star of Nike, Alberto Salazar, called to form part of the Oregon Project, the great program of the sports brand to absolute excellence in athletics. Cain accepted the offer considering it to be a dream come true. “I got involved because I wanted to be the best athlete in the world, but instead of that I received physical and psychological abuse by a system designed to destroy the body of the girls”, revealed this Thursday in a video published by The New York Times.
Cain, now of 23 years, left in 2015 the training center of Nike. It was said that he had not been able to resist the regime of Salazar. The coach was extremely respected for having driven stars of athletics as Mo Farah, four-time olympic champion and six times world champion (5,000 and 10,000 meters)-. Cain defected just after the worst season of his career, so that there were no second readings. Now offers their version of the story, three weeks after that Nike communicated that will end Oregon Project after the suspension of Salazar for violating the anti-doping rule.
“The men’s team of trainers was convinced that I was better was to be more thin, and more thin, and more thin,” says Cain to the camera. Although it was the programme of the highest standard competitive of USA, had no psychological support for the athletes or the guidance of nutritionists in the diet. Salazar was determined that Cain reached 51 kilos. The weighed out in front of their peers and if had not lost weight, the shamed. If I lost a career, had to lose two pounds so that it does not re-occur, always according to the testimony offered at the Times. The physical demand led to a loss of menstrual period for three years. His bones were so weak that it broke five during that span.
The training system “designed by and for men” resulted in Cain a level of distress that led her to consider whether to take his life. “I felt alone, scared, trapped. I started having suicidal thoughts,” admits in the video. Came to cut several times. In may of 2015 lost a race and Salazar returned to pressure her to adelgazara. She confessed that she was cutting her and he sent her to bed, now. “That was the blow to the head that made me understand the sick system in which I was involved”. After that day he left the program in Oregon, and returned with his family to New York. “I wanted to survive, so I made that sad decision,” says the woman who had starred in dozens of headlines as the teen world’s fastest.
Cain says that he is afraid that Nike will simply put another name to the same program and to direct the coaches who accompanied Salazar. “We need more women in power. I wonder what would have become of me if I had been a psychologist, a nutritionist or even a trainer in the program”, poses in the Times. The excompetidora makes a call to the athletic company to change a system that instead of exposing the girls to athletes, to protect them. For his part, gives by closed the chapter and is ready to keep running next year.
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