What followed was, as she describes it in her memoir, a hellish four years for Cain during which, she says, Salazar became emotionally abusive. Cain details a coach who was obsessed with Cain’s weight, isolated her from her own parents, sent her to a sports “psychologist” who was not credentialed, and ignored her clear signs of suicidal ideation, disordered eating and self-harm (Salazar has denied any wrongdoing and he and Nike settled a lawsuit brought by Cain in 2023 alleging the abuse).
The background:
Cain set four different national high school records as a teen, and as a 17-year old made the world championships in the 1500m, finishing 10th in a field of pros. But instead of heading to college to run D-1, she was contacted by Alberto Salazar, a famed running coach at Nike’s Oregon Project, who convinced her to give up college track and go pro, with him.
Umm, how do you become a worldbeater without a bit of pressure?
And that is the complaint by the way. But her autobiog is launched with a full Guardian piece and so on.
Abuse, eh?
Is this the same Salazar who pumped his athletes full of steroids ?
Yes, which is why her complaints are pretty mild….
Working backwards from her stated current age, she will have joined about the time the allegations were becoming very, very public. So, you join coaching programme already notorious and then are horrified to find it’s a bit intense.
But he kept Portugal out of the war.
And sold Britain wolframite (tungsten) necessary for making armour-piercing shells…
There’s some historical revisionism going on. According to
https://www.espn.com/blog/endurance/post/_/id/678/mary-cain-benefits-from-bi-coastal-coaching
Salazar took her on before she peaked in mid-2013-2014.
The G misleads by suggesting first contact with Salazar came after the 2013 World Championships. Are the G trying to suggest he was a schit coach and some other coach should get credit for her amazing 2013 summer season.
First para of that story says he took over in Oct 2012. The story is dated Jan 2013 and begins
NEW YORK — When Alberto Salazar took over coaching high schooler Mary Cain last October, he knew that he would only be able to see the 16-year-old star from Bronxville, N.Y., intermittently; Salazar lives 2,900 miles away in Portland, Ore., and already has a full plate coaching superstars Mo Farah and Galen Rupp.
Should say I’m against 17 year old athletes signing pro contracts, and with hindsight Cain should have gone to college. Who made the decision to forego college for the immediate salary I don’t know, but it’s not like going pro as a sparky or plumber at 17 where you’ll still be all right at aged 30.
Can I just say, before anyone makes any horrible suggestion, that Mo Farah”s highly unusual, very unlikely even, but wonderful career arc was caused by excellent coaching, a renewed and rigorous training regime and of course becoming a vegetarian.
No, becoming a vegetarian is not helpful to anyone taking part in a very physical sport. Someone running and training for marathons will manage better on a vegetarian diet than someone training less than an hour per day. To get enough protein from a vegetarian diet requires the consumption of a horrendous amount of calories. I briefly tried going vegetarian, when I was 20 and training more than a dozen hours a week, and my metabolism couldn’t cope with the inadequate supply of protein so I was constantly hungry and put on pounds and pounds until I quit.
When I was middle-aged I found that treating myself to a steak after a marathon felt good.
in her new memoir
This is no way to sell a book.