Win at All Costs: Inside Nike Running and Its Culture of Deception [9780062917782]

Overview

“After years of rumors and speculation, Matt Hart sets
out to peel back the layers of secrecy that protected the most powerful coach
in running. What he finds will leave you indignant—and wondering whether
anything in the high-stakes world of Olympic sport has truly changed.” —Alex
Hutchinson, New York Times bestselling author of Endure

Game of Shadows meets Shoe Dog in this
explosive behind-the-scenes look that reveals for the first time the unsettling
details of Nike’s secret running program—the Nike Oregon Project.

In May 2017, journalist Matt Hart received a USB drive
containing a single file—a 4.7-megabyte PDF named “Tic Toc, Tic Toc. . .”.
Opening the file, Hart realized he was in possession of a stolen report
prepared a year earlier by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) for the
Texas Medical Board as part of an investigation into legendary running coach
Alberto Salazar, a Houston-based endocrinologist named Dr. Jeffrey Brown, and
their Nike-sponsored runners, including some of the world’s best athletes.

The information Hart received was part of an unfolding story
of deception that began when Steve Magness, an assistant to Salazar, broke the
omertà—the Mafia-like code of silence around performance-enhancing drugs and
gray-area tactics among those involved—and alerted the USADA. He was soon
followed by Olympians Adam and Kara Goucher, who risked their careers to become
whistleblowers on their former Nike running family in Beaverton, Oregon. They
revealed a cult-like environment where athletes were pushed beyond the bounds of
human athletic ability at the expense of competing with integrity: where
runners’ declining mental and physical health was neglected while they were
encouraged to misuse supplements and prescription medications with the help of
complicit medical professionals.

Combining sports drama and business exposé, Win
at All Costs tells the full story of Nike’s secretive running program,
uncovering a cutthroat corporate culture of systemic cheating, gender
discrimination, drug misuse, and medical malpractice. Shocking in the extent of
its revelations, Win at All Costs opens readers’ eyes to the reality
that rigged competition is widespread and entrenched—even at one of the most
prestigious sports brands in the world.