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I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike
- hartator 7y agoTranscript?
- thunderbong 7y agoDupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21476304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21476304 23 comments, 65 points
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoThis article was discussed last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21476304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21476304
- spectramax 7y agoIn general, Coaches are tough and demanding. In this case, clearly, Alberto has crossed the line with Mary. But, how does one know if the coach is abusive or “that’s just how sports is, it’s hard and coaches are tough”? Wouldn’t this lead to weaker coaches that don’t push the atheletes but now are afraid of abusing and crossing the line? Please don’t take this as anything to do with the what happened with Mary - I am not condoning what Alberto did.
- eckza 7y agoIn general, no. You said, yourself, that Alberto "clearly has crossed the line". He didn't cross the line by pushing her, as an athlete; he crossed the line by fostering a culture of emotional and psychological abuse, in the name of athletic performance.
- ergothus 7y ago> But, how does one know if the coach is abusive or “that’s just how sports is, it’s hard and no replacement for hard work”? Two comments - First, althetes are already tough and demanding to themselves. The kinds of tough coaches that need atent the same kind of tough I'd need to get my unmotivated self moving. Equating these kinds of "tough" is inaccurate. They need coaches that have insight and cover their weaknesses, not assholes. Second, I completely understand your logical approach - I've done it myself so many times. But I've started realizing that in doing so I'm supporting the status quo without evidence. I'm defending current injustices because of potential, hypothetical problems. What IF "this lead to weaker coaches that don’t push the atheletes but now are afraid of abusing and crossing the line"? While that's not the ideal, that sounds better than inducing eating disorders that destroy quality of life (and potentially, the lives themselves). I dont think that's a risk - my first point covers that - but if that is a risk, it sounds worth the risk. Certainly better than accepting the status quo because change MIGHT not be better in every measure.
- spectramax 7y agoThanks for a detailed response, I know this is a sensitive topic. I was more curious from a new athelete's standpoint. Say, I am 14 years old, and say I want to become a world class athelete. Objectively, how does a new young athelete know if they are being abused or just "working hard"? There is literally no way to know if some authoritative figure as Coach is telling me to do something I don't like. The central question I have is how does a new comer sense and detect abuse so that they can take action? There is a lot of bullshit in Sports and Nutrition fields of study - partially because the data just isn't there but also because the lack of scientific method employed by people in this industry. Try searching for help on the internet for a sports related topic and you'll get everything and anything from tabloids full of bogus claims to rarely an linked journal from Johns Hopkins. Furthermore, we need to also think about this from a Coach's perspective. There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of coaches around the world. What credentials and authority do they have to make their students do something, especially if there is not scientific or objective backing up the claims? On the other side, Coaches that are now in the business would be completely taken aback and question everything that they do to avoid potential unintended abuse. I have empathy for abused athletes and it has no place in the society. Just that it is important to understand both sides of the coin and not be riled up by emotions.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoI remember Mary Cain’s amazing promise. It’s sad to see how this turned out. One of the things that most turned me off of competitive running in my personal life is when I realized that the lighter you are the faster you can run long distance. It just turns into an unhealthy feedback loop where all your training can be superseded by someone that just weighs less. I don’t want to do a sport that rewards anorexia and unhealthy body weights. Better to just run for fun and the health benefits.
- microcolonel 7y agoAthletic competition is unhealthy regardless; but maybe they could have competition controlled for bone mass ratio or weight?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cujo 7y agoOk, I'll bite. Why is athletic competition unhealthy?
- microcolonel 7y agoI maybe should've specified "at the top level". Your whole body breaks faster: joints, some organs, lungs. There's an amount of exercise that has a positive effect on people who eat more than they absolutely need to, but at some point you are not doing your body any favours. Note I'm not saying "being fat is okay" or "exercise is bad for you".
- dragonwriter 7y agoWhile general fitness is healthy, competing at the peak level (and sometimws far below the peak level, too) in very many (probably most) sports rewards optimizing short-term performance (which aspects vary by sport) over long term health.
- nodejsblogger7 7y ago
- jccalhoun 7y agocan this be redirected to the article instead of the video or at least marked as a video? Article link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/opinion/nike-running-mary-cain.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/opinion/nike-running-mary...
- aeyes 7y agoThe linked article is behind a paywall
- aloukissas 7y agoI happen to prefer video/audio instead of articles, so I just linked this one. It does have a link to the written article right beside the video.
- lostgame 7y agoIt doesn’t help much when you present the alternative to the video as a paywalled link...
- bo1024 7y agoIn this case the main story is the video, not the article. The article is mostly third-person but in the video Mary Cain speaks out directly.
- ct0 7y agoReally inspiring for her to come forward knowing how big nike is. Honestly, we need more people like her.
- majani 7y agoIsn't it well known that you have to be extremely skinny to be competitive in long distance running at the highest level?
- mraudiobook_com 7y agoApparently not but the "fastest girl in the world".
- braythwayt 7y agoSame with cycling the Grand Tours, so much so that team members get fined for not meeting weight targets from the time they arrive at training camp at the beginning of the season, and then for the rest of the season.
- bo1024 7y agoThis is more or less true but you have to draw the causal diagram carefully. Everyone has an optimal weight for them (oversimplifying). The best in the world tend to be very effective at very low weights. E.g. say 114 lbs at 5’7 for the sake of argument. It does not follow that lowering a 5’7 runner’s weight to 114 will always cause improvement. MC is a counterexample. Yes, I’m saying Salazar fell to a basic misconception. He’s had success, but he’s obsessed with dumb things. When you have insanely talented and durable athletes who actually do run best at e.g. 114 you start thinking your system works for everybody.
- spectramax 7y agoSo then why this whole issue related to women? Mary's opinion is that more women on Alberto's team would have been good without any explanation to why. This is an issue with Coaches. In my opinion, if Alberto was a woman, she'd be equally be deluded by her past success, having trained world class athletes and having the prestige of the top program at Nike. Instead of focusing on the issue at hand, broad strokes across the women's movement do not help (in fact that masks the truth). The issue here is specific knowledge that the coach needs to train a woman. There are male gynecologists and urologists, so this is not an issue with Alberto's sexual orientation or his team mates. This was a good ol' boys club of high profile coaches and teams, when they're given large number of resources (Nike), they'll do anything and everything to be successful.
- yters 7y agoPeople don't understand the point of competition is virtue, not winning. Take the 'winning' mentality to its logical extreme of killing all the competition, and the absurdity of it all becomes obvious.
- mendelmaleh 7y agoThe point of competition is to compete (which is why you need to leave the competition alive,) and sort best to worst. Why you would do that is subjective.
- yters 7y agoLike I said, if the point is just winning the whole thing is absurd. And yes, people can do something for whatever reason they choose. But, if the reason they choose is at odds with the reason the thing exists, then they undermine the thing's existence. At best they are ignorant. At worst they are actively trying to destroy that in which they are participating.
- braythwayt 7y agoCough. At this point, the virtuous aspect of sports have taken a nearly complete back seat to power, prestige, and pecuniarum. Universities, for example, ought to be the epitome of pursuing sport for the sake of virtuous self-development. And yet, what do we see there? A system so corrupt it is a miracle it doesn't collapse under the weight of outrage. Athletes who ruin their bodies for nothing except the hope of being drafted to play as professionals, while their coaches are paid millions of dollars a year, We can choose to pursue sport for virtue's sake, but we're kidding ourselves if we believe that this is how sport actually works as an industry within capitalism, or as practiced by flag-waving nation-states.
- mongol 7y agoThanks for exposing me to a (for me) new word.
- programminggeek 7y agoCompetitive sports(or anything else) at a high enough level is more about genetic selection than training. The training reveals and reinforces potential and is obviously necessary, but at some point anything that is competitive enough it really just showing you who found the right sport and the right training for their genetic capabilities. In high school football there were guys who with the same amount of training could squat/bench/deadlift considerably more than everyone else. They were stronger/faster and when applied to the right sports they were on another level. Sure, those less gifted in those areas could train hard to make up some of the difference, but not as much as you'd imagine. If you are short, no matter how hard you train you will be at a disadvantage playing basketball. If you are tall and bigger/overweight, you aren't going to win at cross country distance running. Humans tend to overvalue magical training and undervalue the existing potential that training reveals.
- z3t4 7y agoYou can be naturally strong, but if you don't train, those who do train will beat you anyway. So you need to both train and have good genetics. Sports is not fair, but training usually pays off.
- jSully24 7y agoIf you'd like a deep dive on the extraordinary lengths professional athletes and their teams will go this is a great read: https://www.tylerhamiltonofficial.com/book https://www.tylerhamiltonofficial.com/book It not only goes into the doping, but also the training and diet necessary to get the athletes weight to a level so they can achieve the necessary power to weight ratio to compete to win. It's crazy. But when you consider the investment teams are making in these athletes, you can see their motivation to cheat the system.
- Vysero 7y agoI watched the video on YT last night. I find it rather disgusting. If you ask me there should be weight classes in running, a lot of them. For a company like Nike, not having trained professionals on staff is simply absurd and is completely unacceptable. Obviously, they are wrong about the importance of weight in these competitions considering they killed this poor girls potential with all that nonsense. She was running very fast, then they started starving her and then she started running poorly. Personally, I would have fired the entire staff and started over from first principles after hearing her story.
- lumberingjack 7y agoI never considered weight classes for running but that would definitely make it more competitive I'm always on the lower end and I usually only really compete against about two or three other people.
- jmull 7y agoI think I understand what you're getting at, but I don't think weight classes will help. E.g., consider boxing and wrestling. The competitive pressures will still exist, and athletes will have to go to extremes to make the lowest weight class possible to maximize success.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lumberingjack 7y agoAs an avid runner myself women have it the worst during that time in their lives at that age. Their bodies are changing rapidly but they're still trying to make the same times.