Nike Oregon Project

Nike's Oregon Project is a group created by the athletic shoe company, Nike, in 2001 to promote American long-distance running.The athletes that partake in this program are of a high caliber, which can be attributed to their elite coaching, revolutionary training and use of air thinning technology. The runners live in the Portland, Oregon, area and train at Nike's headquarters campus located just outside the Portland suburb of Beaverton, Oregon. Some of the runners in the group live in a specially designed house where filters are used to remove oxygen from the air to simulate living at high elevation. Numerous studies have shown that living at altitude causes the athlete to develop more red blood cells, increasing athletic performance. In addition to this, special software is used to monitor electrodes attached to the athletes, determining what condition they are in and how far or fast they can train. They use underwater and low-gravity treadmills. They also have a collaboration with Colorado Altitude Training (CAT) for their hypoxic training equipment.

Nike's Oregon Project was created by Nike Vice President Thomas E. Clarke after reportedly being disgusted at the lackluster performance of American athletes in long-distance events since the early 1980s when Oregon Project coach Alberto Salazar won the New York City Marathon three consecutive times from 1980-1982.

When the project first began, Salazar chose some of the top runners of the time that he believed had great potential. Eventually, however, he realized that since these athletes were older, their bad habits had already been engrained and this led Salazar to instead take on younger athletes. This led to his taking on of Matthew Centrowitz ( gold medal 1500 Rio ), Galen Rupp and Adam and Kara Goucher. These athletes went on to be more successful because Salazar was able to work with them from a younger age.

List of current athletes, according to their website:

The health of coach and project director Alberto Salazar has been in question since he suffered a heart attack at Nike's Beaverton campus on June 30, 2007. From that time, Salazar has been implanted with a defibrillator, and he has planned to take a more limited role with Nike Oregon Project. In June 2008, Salazar chose his tentative successor as head of the Oregon Project, hiring cross country coach Jerry Schumacher away from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In turn, Schumacher has brought his top distance protégé, Matt Tegenkamp, with him to join the program along with Chris Solinsky and UW–Madison Freshman turned pro Evan Jager.

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