WASHINGTON, United States: The Nike Oregon Project was set up to end the distance-running dominance of the east Africans but has become a huge headache for the US sportswear giant, which said Friday it was shutting it down.
Alberto Salazar, the coach who founded the prestigious Portland-based training group in 2001, pushed himself to the brink as an athlete, and preached the same philosophy as a coach.
But the 61-year-old Cuban-born American’s will to win went too far, according to the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which last week banned him for four years for multiple doping violations.
Salazar has been a major figure in American athletics for decades, having won the 1980, 1981 and 1982 New York Marathons and the 1982 Boston Marathon.
He is a long-time friend of Nike founder Phil Knight and persuaded him that if the company financed his dream project, he could end the stranglehold of Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes on distances from 800 meters to 10,000m and the marathon.
Salazar’s career is intertwined with Nike’s rise to become the world’s pre-eminent sportswear manufacturer — he even has a tattoo of the company’s swoosh logo.
Even as Nike CEO Mark Parker announced he was closing the Oregon Project on Friday, he said in a memo to staff that Nike would still support Salazar in his appeal because the ban “for someone who acted in good faith is wrong.”
Parker said the arbitration panel that finalized Salazar’s ban “found there was no orchestrated doping, no finding that performance enhancing drugs have ever been used on Oregon Project athletes and went out of its way to note Alberto’s desire to follow all rules.”
The group’s most successful athlete is Britain’s Mo Farah, the 2012 and 2016 Olympic champion at 5,000 meters and 10,000m. Farah left the Oregon Project in 2017.
The project currently includes Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, who won the women’s 1500m and 10,000m titles at the World Championships in Doha last week, and Donavan Brazier, who took the men’s 800m gold.
There is no suggestion that any of these athletes have been involved in wrongdoing, but since Salazar’s ban, Farah is facing new questions about why he continued working with the coach even when he knew he was under investigation.
Farah won the Oregon Project’s first Olympic gold in 2012 in London in the 10,000m. Galen Rupp, a long-time Salazar protege, took the silver medal behind him, and Farah also claimed the 5,000m gold.
But behind the scenes, Salazar’s colleagues were concerned. Steve Magness, who spent 18 months as Salazar’s assistant but quit before the London Olympics, spoke out as a whistleblower when the BBC’s investigative show Panorama and ProPublica investigated doping allegations in 2015.
Testimony from various figures alleged microdosing of testosterone, among other suspicious actions.
The USADA report into Salazar’s activities revealed that Salazar kept Nike CEO Parker informed of his experiments with injecting a mixture of amino acid and dextrose at doses clearly above what would be allowed under World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) regulations.
In another email to Parker, Jeffrey Brown, a doctor who worked with the NOP and has also now been banned, described experiments with testosterone gel.
Parker responded to Brown, “It will be interesting to determine the minimal amount of topical male hormone required to create a positive test.”
A Nike spokesman said Parker “had no reason to believe that the test was outside any rules as a medical doctor was involved” and that he believed Salazar “was attempting to prevent doping of his athletes.”
Under Salazar’s guidance, Farah won another golden double at the Rio Olympics in 2016 where Rupp took marathon bronze and another Oregon Project athlete, Matt Centrowitz, won the 1,500m.
By the time Farah left the group in October 2017, USADA was investigating Salazar and Brown.
The case against the two went to the American Arbitration Association, with hearings conducted in May and June 2018 setting the stage for the rulings handed down last week.
USADA chief executive Travis Tygart said Salazar and Brown had “demonstrated that winning was more important than the health and wellbeing of the athletes they were sworn to protect.”
Salazar has strongly denied any wrongdoing and said he and his athletes “have endured unjust, unethical and highly damaging treatment from USADA.”
“The Oregon Project has never and will never permit doping,” he said.
Nike’s groundbreaking Oregon Project wound up in disgrace
Nike’s groundbreaking Oregon Project wound up in disgrace
- Alberto Salazar is a long-time friend of Nike founder Phil Knight and persuaded him that if the company financed his dream project, he could end the stranglehold of Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes
- But the 61-year-old Cuban-born American’s will to win went too far, according to the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which last week banned him for four years for multiple doping violations
LIV Golf CEO says informal talks with PGA Tour ongoing
- LIV continues to have ‘constructive dialogue’ with OWGR on ranking points
NEW YORK: LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil has said informal conversations between the Saudi-funded circuit and the PGA Tour are continuing but any hope of ending the sport’s longest-running soap opera is not currently on the horizon.
O’Neil maintains regular contact with PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, a friend and former business-school classmate, but said their communication has not brought any meaningful progress toward finalizing the framework agreement the two circuits announced in June 2023 before either were in their current role.
“The reality is we continue to have conversations, and Brian and I do have a relationship — we text, we talk relatively regularly,” O’Neil told Reuters during an interview from LIV Golf’s New York office.
“We are not in any serious negotiation at this point. We both believe that there are opportunities to work together, and we both believe that there is plenty of space in golf. We at LIV Golf are intently focused on developing LIV Golf around the world.”
Trump’s involvement
LIV Golf, which held its inaugural event in June 2022, has shaken up the golf world like never before and, with the help of mega-money contracts and lucrative purses, has lured several top names from the PGA Tour into its stable of players.
LIV players include the likes of Bryson DeChambeau — considered golf’s greatest showman — and fellow major champions Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka.
After a year of acrimony, the PGA Tour, Europe-based DP World Tour and Saudi backers of LIV Golf announced in June 2023 a framework agreement to house their commercial operations in a new entity but have failed to reach a definitive agreement.
The divide has even captured the attention of US President Donald Trump, an avid golfer who was part of two meetings on the matter at the White House in February when there was optimism that the schism between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour would soon be resolved.
O’Neil said he still felt LIV Golf should “do something” with the PGA Tour but did not elaborate on what any sort of agreement would look like. He also did not give details on when, or if, the two sides plan to meet next, a stance he said he shared with Rolapp.
“We both agreed that we are going to keep all that stuff between the two of us,” said O’Neil. “If there is ever anything to report we’ll report it.”
World ranking points
When it comes to LIV’s ongoing bid for world ranking points, which are considered critical given the majors use them to help determine their fields, O’Neil is hopeful a decision on the matter could happen in the coming weeks.
LIV’s initial bid to have its players earn world ranking points was unanimously rejected by the Official World Golf Ranking in October 2023, with a key concern said to be limited access for players to join a circuit that, barring injury, featured the same players all season.
The OWGR also said at the time that LIV’s 54-hole format was an issue but one that was capable of being managed through an appropriate mathematical formula.
In June, LIV Golf renewed its pursuit of world ranking points by submitting an application with the OWGR, whose governing board includes non-voting Chairman Trevor Immelman, members from all four majors plus members of the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Participating Eligible Tours.
LIV has also since announced it will expand its tournament format to 72 holes in 2026.
“We continue to have constructive dialogue,” said O’Neil. “We are hoping to get something done by the turn of the calendar (year) and we are still on that timeline.
“I have a lot of time for Trevor Immelman, a lot of respect for him as a chairman and as a leader. I found him strong, demanding, tough at times, and I think really constructive.”
‘Bullish on the future’
After 11 months as CEO, O’Neil is upbeat about LIV’s future with the circuit on pace to sell out all premium hospitality seating for 2026 — when it will stage 14 events across 10 countries — after what it called a record-setting year in 2025.
“I’ve never had this much fun in a job. I’ve never been this challenged, this exhilarated, this bullish on the future,” said O’Neil.
“When I talk about being bullish on the future I am specifically referring to the stars, so Bryson, Jon Rahm ... and the emerging young talent we have. Seeing what’s actually happening here gives me hope.
“And then the commercial momentum and success has been like nothing I have seen in 30 years in this business.”
