For what? $1 $2 $100k?

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Winning the Olympics is more about being the very best at something. Which is what many people strive for.

Winning the Olympics would be great. But you're still not answering the question. How much? $1 $2 How much to give up a full ride at a top running school. It needs to be something otherwise this isn't a rational conversation.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

may i rephrase? because i phrased it badly. she dropped out of HS sports. i always think this is a mistake, in running. whether you're mary cain or alan webb or anyone else, there's plenty of time to become a great runner. becoming a pro while you're still in HS - which as i recall is basically what mary did - katelyn tuohy is the counterpoint to that, and i suspect if mary was to talk about her career path she'd endorse the katelyn tuohy approach. and so would mary's parents (in retrospect).

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

It's just an awful, awful story. I'm glad she's speaking out.

How insane is it that they didn't have a certified nutritionist on staff? No sports psychologist? You're talking about the "top" running team in the world and it really was just Salazar and some coaches just trying shit (like illegal drugs on coaches, staff, his son).

Interesting twitter posts from Steve Magness (former NOP coach and whistleblower):

In 2011-2012, I witnessed many instances that confirm @runmarycain and @yoderbegley's accounts. It was the norm. It was part of the culture. It was abhorrent.


Change doesn't occur unless it comes to light, here are some of those instances:


In 2012, I sat in a boardroom with Alberto Salazar and the team sports psychologist, Darren Treasure. We were discussing the performance of an athlete who had just run at a world championship. She’d performed well for herself, beating athletes with much faster personal bests.


That didn’t matter to Salazar. “Her butt is so big, she can barely lift her knees,” was the comment that stung. I countered by showing him the athlete's body fat testing results that we’d had done in a performance lab shortly before.


It stated 12.4% body fat, about the lowest she could get while still maintaining her health. “I don’t care what the science says! I know what I see! Her butt is too big!” I refused to tell the athlete to lose weight.


It was getting heated. Darren stepped in and said “Maybe, instead we provide a model. Someone to look to and emulate. How about Jenny Simpson.”


Salazar responded. “No. Not Simpson. You know why she's not fast right now? Her butt is big too! She's way too soft and pudgy.” This was in 2012. Simpson was already a world champion.



There were other instances.
-Comments about using thyroid meds to speed up metabolism
-Comments to runners about their weight/size of body parts during/after workouts.
-Encouragement to leave meals hungry and admonishing athletes for eating things like a burger.



The point is. It was part of the culture. As I listened to Mary Cain speak, it all resonated.


Salazar was obsessed with weight. He'd 'joke' about using liposuction or removing your appendix for weight loss. He'd try to get athletes to take shady diet supplements.


I've witnessed the harm and damage that such a culture creates. It's lasting mental health issues.


That's the issue.
The culture made it where crazy was normal. Where people justified all sorts of crazy shit with mental gymnastics. They rationalized it.


I encourage all of those who witnessed or were part of this, to speak up. We all stood by at points in time. We were all blinded by the "cult", where secrecy and us against everyone else mindsets were used to manipulate us all.


But, change only happens if we speak out.


And it's time for the group "formerly known as NOP" takes a hard look at themselves. They have some difficult choices to make. It's hard to leave a cult, but what kind of sport do you want in the future? The one Cain experienced or a better one?


I get it. It's hard to walk away from $. To get your mind out of the craziness & to see clearly.


Some of you I warned about this & other stuff, and you still chose to join. I don't fault you. But the fog is clearing. See what Mary, Amy, Kara, and others are saying. That's real.

It’s very much a sports problem. I can name 3 coaches in my area that I’ve heard similar stories from parents and athletes.

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Mark Saroni
____________________________________________________________
COACHING | TRAINING PLANS
MS Kinesiology | USAT LII | USAC L3

When you look at BTC vs NOP...I can see which one is run professionally.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Completely willing to admit its more than just a Nike problem. But the NOP project is clearly an extreme. If a high school coach ignores someone who says they're cutting themselves, I would hope they end up with some serious legal problems. It is admittedly different when you're dealing with mostly adults (18+) and the best in the world. So Salazar pushed that to the bounds. Yes I'm familiar with college and even high school coaches who encourage athletes to lose weight, and that is certainly a problem, but that simply isn't on the same level as what Salazar was doing.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

Gwen Jorgenson posted screenshots of her TrainingPeaks, specifically the menstruation monitoring page sometime either right before or during her pregnancy with Stanley and made a few comments on Twitter about how she NEVER lost her period during her triathlon training, and that she really made sure that she didn't because she knew it wasn't normal or healthy. And she's super freaking lean.

Okay seems there is now a new twist in the story, apparently Mary tried to rejoin NOP in april 2019, and didn't lift any of the concerns in which she is now going public with. Seems strange as she mentions in the video that she realized 4 years ago it was toxic but idk.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

There was what 2 groups within NOP now? There’s a guy from Raleigh that runs for NOP but wasn’t under Salazar’s direction for that group.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

No afaik there is only one group, however it was pretty much only Rupp who got instructions directly from Salazar and the rest got them from Jacobs.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

Craig Engels said it was a distinct 2 groups and sometimes they worked out together and sometimes they didn’t. He was never “coached” by Salazar.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Where did you learn that? She lives in New York and attends Fordham.

And I get it, regardless. If you were an elite runner in the U.S. you couldn't go against Nike. They control(ed) everything, including governing bodies. Maybe she thought NOP had changed, or could be changed.

It's a common question. Why didn't all the U.S. gymnasts being molested by Nassar go public at the time? Because there's a power differential. If you were a prospective national team gymnast, you go with the program. If you're a prospective elite runner, you stick with the Nike program. Or you end your career.

Edit: And just to highlight the power differential. Collegiate footballers who could have dropped Sandusky with one punch didn't. Because you don't go against The Program. I like to think that if some old man tried to fondle my junk I'd light him up, and call the police. But then again I was never of a storied, cult-like Program with dreams of stadiums filled with 100,000K, and possibly the NFL.

Yes but I doubt Jacobs wrote the workouts for the other “group”, pretty sure Salazar wrote all the workouts but wasn’t really close to anyone but his golden boy. Not sure how it matters though.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

I dont think Salazar wrote the workouts for all the athletes, that wouldn't make sense off what Engels was saying. It matters because there could have been another option for Cain if she came back to NOP. You are reporting she wanted back in, I'm just showing you there could have been an alternative your not accounting for.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

True. Look at the list of previous girls Footlocker winners. A lot of them had eating disorders that ended their college running careers.

Why would anyone go back to NOP when all of the women are contracted to BTC? That makes no sense.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

So NOP has zero women on it? How long has that been the case?

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

When Cain joined the NOP she was the only woman, or that's how she intimated in the video. Since the website has already been taken down there's three women on the team per wiki: Hasay, Hull, and Rowbury...whereas the BTC has a lot of women. Also, Shalane has transitioned to being a coach within BTC...so you know, a real support system for a young female athlete.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I’ve seen plenty of athletes leave a program and come back at a later date for a variety of reasons. Your showcasing why she may have made contact to see if the culture had changed....NOP had more women in the program.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Source

ETA: NM found it. I don't use the twitter machine... it is curious she would specifically try to go back there rather than any other shoe company or BTC but then again, people who suffer from those kinds of abuse tend to make decisions that don't make sense to most of us.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

Then that would be a really stupid and naive viewpoint. Cultures don't change at all in a company or organization when the leaders are the same. There may be some cosmetic differences...but if the leaders are the same it's still shit.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Right but she never joined so what’s the issue with reaching out?

To discredit her in some way? To show she was potentially hypocritical?


ETA: Irregardless of what she's done in the past, I think it's a sad state of affairs that an athlete was at this depressive of a state and the reaction of her coaches was what it was. That's sickening to think about just how "performance" focused you have to be to essentially shoulder shrug at an athlete in that situation (reportedly).

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II