More than a decade ago Kara Goucher, a two-time Olympian, World Championship silver medalist and renowned marathoner, left the famed and secretive running team at Nike coached by Alberto Salazar: The Oregon Project. She didn’t say much at the time about her reasoning. Since then, stories that shocked the running world have come to light about Nike and Salazar, exposing harassment, abuse, doping violations and discriminatory maternity contracts.
Many of the details of what exactly happened with The Oregon Project, Salazar and Goucher have remained shrouded in an air of mystery. Until now.
In 2015, Goucher spoke to the media about her experience being pressured by Salazar to take a thyroid medication she wasn’t prescribed as a way to lose weight. She later cooperated with the United States Anti-Doping Agency case that resulted in Salazar’s four-year coaching suspension for doping violations, then detailed some of her experience about her Nike contract being suspended while she was pregnant and recovering from childbirth to The New York Times in ’19.
