Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • I was the fastest girl in America.

  • Mary Cain!”

  • There are women here almost twice her age

  • being left in her wake.“

  • I set many national records.

  • And I was a straight-A student.

  • “C'mon, Mary Cain!”

  • When I was 16, I got a call from Alberto Salazar at Nike.

  • He was the world's most famous track coach and he told me

  • I was the most talented athlete he'd ever seen.

  • During my freshman year in college, I moved out to train

  • with him and his team full time

  • at Nike world headquarters.

  • It was a team of the fastest athletes in the world.

  • And it was a dream come true.

  • I joined Nike because I wanted to be the best female athlete, ever.

  • Instead, I was emotionally and physically

  • abused by a system designed by Alberto and endorsed by Nike.

  • This is what happened to me.

  • When I first arrived, an all-male Nike staff

  • became convinced that in order

  • for me to get better,

  • I had to become thinner, and thinner, and thinner.

  • This Nike team was the top running program

  • in the country.

  • And yet we had no certified sports psychologist.

  • There was no certified nutritionist.

  • It was really just a bunch of people

  • who were Alberto's friends.

  • So when I went to anybody for help,

  • they would always just tell me the same thing.

  • And that was to listen to Alberto.

  • Alberto was constantly trying to get me to lose weight.

  • He created an arbitrary number of 114 pounds,

  • and he would usually weigh me in front of my teammates

  • and publicly shame me if I wasn't hitting weight.

  • He wanted to give me birth control pills

  • and diuretics to lose weight

  • the latter of which isn't allowed in track and field.

  • 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 saw earlier that day.

  • It would be naïve to not acknowledge the fact

  • that weight is important in sports.

  • Like boxers need to maintain a certain weight, or you know

  • everybody always ends up citing

  • the math about how the thinner you are,

  • the faster you're going to run because you

  • have to carry less weight.

  • But here's a biology lesson I learned the hard way.

  • When young women are forced to push themselves beyond what

  • they're capable at their given age,

  • they're at risk for developing RED–S.

  • Suddenly, you realize you've lost your period for a couple months.

  • And then a couple months becomes a couple years.

  • And in my case, it was a total of three.

  • And if you're not getting your period,

  • you're not going to be able to have

  • the necessary levels of estrogen

  • to maintain strong bone health.

  • And in my case, I broke five different bones.

  • The New York Times Magazine published

  • a story about how Alberto was training me and nurturing

  • my talent.

  • We weren't doing any of that.

  • I felt so scared.

  • I felt so alone.

  • And I felt so trapped. And I started

  • to have suicidal thoughts.

  • I started to cut myself.

  • Some people saw me cutting myself

  • and ... sorry.

  • Nobody really did anything or said anything.

  • So in 2015, I ran this race,

  • and I didn't run super well.

  • And afterwards, there was a thunderstorm

  • going on. Half the track was under one tent.

  • Alberto yelled at me in front of everybody

  • else at the meet, and he told me

  • that I'd clearly gained five pounds before the race.

  • It was also that night that I told Alberto and our sports psych

  • that I was cutting myself.

  • And they pretty much told me they just wanted to go to bed.

  • And I think for me, that was my kick in the head where

  • I was like, “This system is sick.”

  • I think even for my parents in certain ways,

  • once I finally vocalized to them,

  • I mean, they were horrified.

  • They bought me the first plane ride home.

  • And they were like, ”Get on that flight.

  • Get the hell out of there.”

  • I wasn't even trying to make the Olympics anymore.

  • I was just trying to survive.

  • So I made the painful choice

  • and I quit the team.

  • After a multiyear investigation,

  • the U.S. anti-doping agency has banned

  • Alberto Salazar from the sport for four years.”

  • Nike will shut down the Oregon project.”

  • Nike C.E.O. Mark Parker stepping down

  • from the company in January of 2020.”

  • Those reforms are mostly a direct result

  • of the doping scandal.

  • 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.

  • That's what needs to change, and here's how we can do it.

  • First, Nike needs to change.

  • In track and field, Nike is all powerful.

  • They control the top coaches, athletes, races,

  • even the governing body.

  • You can't just fire a coach and eliminate a program

  • and pretend the problem is solved.

  • My worry is that Nike is merely

  • going to rebrand the old program

  • and put Alberto's old assistant coaches in charge.

  • Secondly, we need more women in power.

  • Part of me wonders if I had worked

  • with more female psychologists, nutritionists and even coaches

  • where I'd be today.

  • I got caught in a system designed by and for men,

  • which destroys the bodies of young girls.

  • Rather than force young girls to fend for themselves,

  • we have to protect them.

  • I genuinely do have hope for the sport.

  • And I plan to be running for many years to come.

  • And so part of the reason I'm doing this now

  • is I want to end this chapter

  • and I want to start a new one.

I was the fastest girl in America.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it