In a blog post on her website yesterday, Mary Cain said that she is leaving the Nike Oregon Project after almost exactly three years. Cain wrote:
"I
have been back home in New York for over a year and a half now and I am
a full time student at Fordham University. I have made the decision to
remain on the east coast for the foreseeable future, so I will no longer
be competing in the Nike Oregon Project uniform. Although I enjoyed my
time on the Oregon Project, we felt it no longer made sense logistically
to compete for the team. These days, John Henwood has taken full control of my training."
In
2013, Cain lowered the high school 1500m record from 4:14 to 4:04 and
became the first high school girl ever to break 2:00 in the 800m. She
also made the 1500m final at that summer's world championship, finishing
10th in Moscow.
In 2014, she won the 3000m at the IAAF World
Junior Championships in Eugene, Oregon, becoming the first American to
win a distance race at world juniors. She's struggled since then, taking
8th in the 1500m at USAs in 2015 and 11th in the event at the Olympic
Trials this summer. She hasn't broken 4:10 since 2014, but doesn't turn
21 until next May. Cain graduated from high school in 2013 and began to
be coached by NOP head coach Alberto Salazar in the fall of her senior
year.
Cain is from the New York City suburbs; Henwood is a native New Zealander and a 2004 Olympian.