Nike Says Runner Mary Cain Never Raised ‘Troubling Allegations’ of Physical and Emotional Abuse to the Brand
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Nike is denying it had any prior knowledge of the allegations of physical and emotional abuse leveled by former Nike Oregon Project athlete Mary Cain that were published in a New York Times video today.
In the article, she claimed she was victimized during her time with the company’s running group and its former head coach Alberto Salazar.
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“These are deeply troubling allegations which have not been raised by Mary or her parents before,” a Nike spokesperson told FN in a statement today. “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.”
The 23-year-old participated in the program with the sportswear brand and Salazar in 2012 when she was a freshman at the University of Portland. Cain claimed that she suffered health woes and her running career was subsequently derailed under the guidance of Salazar and the Nike-endorsed program.
“We take the allegations extremely seriously and will launch an immediate investigation to hear from former Oregon Project athletes,” Nike’s statement continued. “At Nike we seek to always put the athlete at the center of everything we do, and these allegations are completely inconsistent with our values.”
In the NYT video, Cain said, “I was emotionally and physically abused by a system designed by Alberto and endorsed by Nike.”
She added that pressure to become “thinner and thinner and thinner” led to her developing RED-S Syndrome, also known as the Female Athlete Triad, a condition that is manifested in decreased bone density and loss of a menstrual cycle. She explained that the condition resulted in her experiencing three years without a menstrual period, five broken bones and emotional distress.
“I ran terrible during this time. It reached a point where I was on the starting line and I’d lost the race before I started because in my head, all I was thinking of was not the time I was trying to hit but the number on the scale I was earlier that day,” Cain said. “I felt so scared. And I felt so trapped. And I started to have suicidal thoughts. I started cutting myself.”
Cain alleges that Salazar and his staff would berate her in front of her peers if she did not hit an “arbitrary” target weight of 114 pounds, claiming that she was told to take birth-control pills and diuretics, the latter banned in track-and-field, to keep her weight down.
The accusations come after Salazar was banned from his profession by the U.S. Anti-Doping Association for four years. Through a six-year-review, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency found that Salazar trafficked testosterone, a banned substance; tampered or attempted to tamper with the doping control process; and administered a prohibited IV infusion. Nike CEO Mark Parker became caught in the scandal as well, after reports suggested leaked emails between the executive and Salazar appeared to indicate his knowledge of purported doping.
On Oct. 10, Nike announced it would “wind down” the Oregon Project. Parker announced his exit from the CEO role on Oct. 22, a departure that some insiders thought could be connected to the Oregon Project scandal.
“Those reforms are mostly a direct result of the doping scandal,” Cain suggested, adding that the she believes necessary work isn’t done yet: “They’re not acknowledging the fact that there is a systemic crisis in women’s sports and at Nike, in which young girls’ bodies are being ruined by an emotionally and physically abusive system.”
Cain further suggested she “got caught in a system designed by and for men,” referring to the all-male training staff at NOP. If she had worked with more female nutritionists, trainers and psychologists, the runner noted, she thinks she might have been able to avoid some of the emotional and physical turmoil she said she experienced.
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