Documentary maker Paul Kemp discusses his recent Hot Docs submission Nike’s Big Bet, produced with Canada’s Cream Films, which raises questions about the banning of controversial athletics coach Alberto Salazar and examines why sports giant Nike is still standing behind its man.

Paul Kemp

What are the origins of your most recent project, Nike’s Big Bet?
I’m a competitive runner and a filmmaker, although I have never done a film about running before. I’ve done everything from films on transgender athletes to films about the science of sin and serial killer movies. This story is a massive story in the world of running, certainly the biggest story of 2019. It was the number one coach in the world getting banned from the sport in the middle of the World Championships. It felt like suspicious timing, banning him in the middle of the event, and the impact it had because he was the number one coach under the Nike brand as part of the Nike Origin project, which is the most successful track club ever, drew me in.

I was thinking about the story and, meanwhile, Corey Russell, the exec producer at Cream Films, had a meeting with [Canadian newspaper] the Globe & Mail and they were chatting about it. At first I didn’t know if the film would transcend to viewers who don’t have a love of the sport, but Cream was interested, the Globe & Mail was interested and we decided to do a doc on it.

My first instinct was the story was deeper and the media had the story a bit wrong, to tell you the truth. They had immediately called him guilty and thrown him under the bus. I thought it was a deeper story and I wanted to explore Salazar’s obsessive character – he’s known as a mad scientist in the world of track and field. I wanted to know if there was substance behind the doping allegations. I went to the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers in Tokyo in 2019 to pitch the show and broadcasters in Germany, France and UK were all interested in the story. I was convinced the Europeans wouldn’t know who he was but they did and thought it was a great story. Eventually I got the CBC on board and we were financed.

How did you get access to some of the big-name talking heads in the doc? Was it a challenge to get people to speak on the record about a controversial, ongoing case?
I went to the US Olympic trials in February 2020 and it was basically a meeting ground of who’s who in American track and field. I was able to track down 10 interviews over a week around the trials, scrabbling for filming locations all over Atlanta. We then entered the Covid-19 lockdown, which made it more difficult and I had to pick my hunches as to who and where I could go.

Salazar in front of the building that still bears his name

I interviewed Alex Hutchinson, who is a well known journalist in track and field and has a lot of respect. He thought the questions were fair and honest and gave me a hand with emails, and from there I cold-called a lot of people. Once I did an interview, often it opened doors to other ones; people felt I was coming in with an open mind.

Salazar said no, not because he didn’t want to. His lawyer spoke to me twice and said he wanted to speak, but they’re in the middle of an appeal over his case with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland and they felt anything they said on camera could be held against him. We’re waiting to hear the outcome of that. I was able to get four former members of the club who were open to talking about it – two of them have made a case against him, two of them were supporters, so it was an interesting mix.

What other challenges did the pandemic pose?
We’ve done it with no remote interviews. After the trials I had to wait for five months. Then I got a call from Sky Films saying, ‘Are you finishing the film?’ and I had to make the call. We had a travel ban but I could get on a plane and go across the border – the issue was coming back. So I picked up a camera and went with Zebadiah Smith, who has worked on a lot of Vice films and is a great cameraman.

We made it to seven states. I had to make sure each one I went to didn’t have a quarantine to interrupt the next stage, so we had to map the course through Nevada, Utah, drive across into Colorado, Oregon, fly to New York… I ended up being there for 14 days and did 11 interviews. It was hard but I got access, we shot almost all of them outside or in well ventilated rooms on a long lens. Most people were more than willing; they’re healthy young people.

We’ve seen a lot of exposé documentaries in recent times around drug cheating in cycling and athletics, and I was expecting the same from this. Actually it’s the opposite, almost advocating for Salazar. Was that the purpose of the film?
No I don’t think so, I wanted to do a character piece on Salazar himself. I find him a fascinating individual. He was a former world record holder in the 81 marathon. I remember being 11 years old and watching him break that record on TV. He faded out as an athlete because he overtrained, he was almost psychopathic. The doc does a good job of showing his obsession and his desire to win as a coach didn’t change – it was crazy. He was called a mad scientist and I think that’s correct.

Alberto Salazar was a marathon world record breaker

When I read the report that resulted in a four-year ban, which is publicly available, what he did didn’t seem that egregious to me. I was interested in that fine line that exists in elite sports. Every athlete is trying to find that line – you don’t want to cheat, taking EPO or testosterone, but things like legal amino acids, everybody I know who competed took that stuff. I know athletes that sleep in oxygen tents in their house. These are all little hacks people do to give themselves an advantage. Salazar is well known for doing these.

If I had dug up EPO syringes, testosterone creams, any of that, it would have been in the film. The fact is, the harder I looked the less I found. I was also intrigued why Nike was backing him. They had dumped Tim Montgomery and other world record-holding athletes, they dumped Lance Armstrong, but they’re backing this guy with tens of millions in legal fees. They put a building up and refused to take his name off it. Why? Why would they put Nike’s name at stake to support a guy like Salazar? If he is such a cheat why would the brand do that? That’s the question I wanted to ask.

I needed to paint a picture of his character in doing so. Once you see how obsessed he is you start to realise maybe he was trying to work inside the rules but get to that line, that 100th of a line. Mo Farrah is a British runner who went from being really good in 2010 to being the best in the world with Salazar. A lot of it had to do with the training methods.

There felt like a fairly stark difference in the points of view of the female contributors and the male ones. In the case of Mary Cain, who said she was emotionally and physically abused by Salazar, at one point contributors felt like they were victim blaming – that it was her parents’ fault for letting her go into the programme, that she should have known what to expect – rather than Salazar. How does that sit with present day attitudes?
That is the criticism I’ve had. We did ask Mary Cain to take part, did a long chat with her, offered the opportunity to be in the film and she declined. The New York Times did a film with her which did not give Nike or Salazar the right to rebut the claims. I didn’t think that was right. I thought it was interesting that Mary Cain had asked to join the club and then five months later she released a film calling him out. I wanted to ask her about that. I thought the interview would happen but when I got to New York she didn’t return phone calls, her agent didn’t return calls and it didn’t happen. I think it’s a fair statement that it would be better if she was in the film and I’m disappointed.

Corey Russell

I know people who were big supporters of Salazar who didn’t join the film either, like Jordan Hasay, who has talked very bluntly about how she supports him and would be training with him now if he wasn’t banned. Other women have talked positively about him. There are a group of women in the club who said, ‘Yes, he’s a strident guy, not a touchy feely coach. You have to make those choices when you join the club.’ Sifan Hassan has defended him and is in the film defending him. There are women in the film who defend him.

It’s a reasonable criticism but the film I was doing wasn’t about his relationship with women, it was about the fine line of elite sports and what draws athletes like that to a programme like that.

The film pivots two-thirds of the way through to focus on Nike’s controversial Air Zoom running shoes, which have knocked seconds off times and disadvantaged non-Nike athletes. Why did you include that?
If I had Salazar on camera I wouldn’t have pivoted as much, but the interesting thing from the shoe is it exemplifies Nike perfectly. It’s the best brand in the world, the best at innovating and it is transforming the sport with these shoes. It gives 2-4% speed increase, everybody knows it, everybody at the Olympics can either wear the shoes or not wear the shoes and you will see how many do.

I pivoted in that regard to show that Nike’s corporate culture and why they would support Salazar is not that surprising. They push every envelope to win. They are forcing every company in the world to react to them. I wanted to show that the corporation and Salazar are similar in many ways. He’s the human embodiment of Nike. It’s why they have supported him so much; he will win at all costs. The question I hope the audience is left with is is this something I want my child to be part of? Elite sport is messed up at the top end.

It just leaves me feeling, ‘What’s the point?’ We’re supposed to be finding out who’s the fastest, not who’s got the fastest, springiest shoes, aren’t we?
What’s happened is it creates an uneven playing field between Nike athletes and athletes attached to other companies. Those athletes are taking a hit, but they will catch up. There is little doubt science is showing this shoe gives an advantage.

Do you think Nike is a force for good or bad in the sport?
I think they are a force for good. I’m a big fan of their shoes. If Nike wasn’t there, there wouldn’t be track and field. They’re the biggest supporters of the US Track and Field Association, the International Olympic Committee, the biggest supporters of track clubs that top runners run at, they support the Diamond League… If they pulled their money it would be like a house of cards.

You can argue that they push the limits on all these things. I think their moral compass can be a little off, but they certainly aren’t destroying the sport. They believe in athletics, track and field, and running – it’s the DNA of the company and they aren’t going to let that go. They started as a running brand, now they sell more Michael Jordan products than anything else but they’re a running company at heart. As a running fan I’m happy they are there. Could they be more transparent? Probably.