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Now available in paperback!


WIN AT ALL COSTS: INSIDE NIKE RUNNING AND ITS CULTURE OF DECEPTION

An explosive behind-the-scenes look that reveals for the first time the unsettling details of Nike’s elite running program—the Nike Oregon Project—exposing a litany of lies and deception, and a culture built around performance-enhancing drugs. Preorder the paperback here.

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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 USADA. He was soon followed by Olympian Kara Goucher, who risked her career to become a whistleblower on their former Nike running family in Beaverton, Oregon. What they revealed was a cultlike 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.

"Win At All Costs will make you question why on earth losing integrity is ever worth winning a race. There are important considerations here: can a cheater tell the truth, and does every athlete have his or her own line to draw when it comes to what is acceptable to boost performance? Win At All Costs will answer these questions and send you on a never-ending quest for truth and justice."

— Deena Kastor, Olympic Medalist and American Record Holder and New York Times bestselling author of Let Your Mind Run

“Matt Hart’s meticulous reporting documents the toxic culture cultivated by the running world’s most powerful coach and one of the sport’s most influential brands. Win At All Costs illuminates the devastating consequences the Nike Oregon Project’s poisonous atmosphere and illicit practices had for athletes, and the tremendous personal cost borne by whistleblowers like Kara and Adam Goucher and Steve Magness, who chose to follow their moral compass.”

— Christie Aschwanden, award-winning science journalist and New York Times bestselling author of Good to Go

"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