By: Yuer Li

Galen Rupp is a Track and Field athlete. He recently competed in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. He is considered one of the greatest distance runners of all time. Since 2016, the national competitions he competed in became races for second and third because he was that good!

Alberto Salazar is a former record holder who found Rupp in high school, believing Rupp had the potential to be one of the elites. In 2001, Salazar established the Nike Oregon Project, a track team focused on developing athletes. He became Rupp’s coach. Rupp went on to win bronze in the marathon of the 2016 games. In 2017, he won the Chicago Marathon.

In 2017, Salazar received a ban from the US Anti-Doping Agency for multiple doping-related offenses, some of which included trafficking testosterone and tampering with the doping control process. He had also publicly ridiculed and body-shamed two female athletes he was training: Mary Cain and Amy Yoder Begley. Salazar was banned from Track and Field for life.

In 2019, Nike shut down the Nike Oregon Project. Rupp started to train with Mike Smith, the coach at Northern Arizona University.

In recent years, Rupp has battled back pain, a herniated disk, a pinched nerve, and covid 19.

He knows Track and Field is hard, but he accepts the difficulty.