Former Nike Oregon Project coach Alberto Salazar's status has been moved from "temporarily ineligible" to "permanent ineligibility" by the U.S. Center for SafeSport.
SafeSport, which has a centralized disciplinary database, updated Salazar's status on Monday. This means that he can no longer coach U.S. track and field athletes.
In February 2020, Salazar was temporarily suspended after former track star Mary Cain, then a teenager whom Salazar coached from 2013 to 2015, said in 2019 that Salazar measured her weight in front of her teammates, shaming her publicly for not meeting the preestablished standards on the weighing machine.
Salazar's treatment of her made her suffer from depression, stress fractures and suicidal thoughts, said Cain, who is now 24. She also didn't menstruate for three years, she said.
Former members of the Oregon Project, which has now been disbanded, corroborated Cain's allegations; another member of the team, Amy Yoder Begley, who is a 2008 Olympian, came forward and shared her own experience with Salazar. Salazar dismissed her from the team because he thought she looked too heavy, Begley said.
Salazar is also currently serving a four-year ban for doping violations. Salazar trafficked testosterone, infused a prohibited amount of L-carnitine and tried to tamper with doping controls, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said in October 2019.
The U.S. Center for SafeSport is a non-profit, independent organization created in 2017 to address issues of sexual abuse of minors and amateur athletes in U.S. Olympic and Paralympic sports. The organization was established in Denver under the purview of the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017.