Charismatic, irritating Nike will take Oregon Project closure in its stride | Richard Williams

Any controversy enhances the mega-brand that has become synonymous with challenging accepted codes of behaviour The closure of Nike's Oregon Project, barely a week after a four-year ban was slapped on its founder and director, Alberto Salazar, deprives athletics of its most extraordinary coaching scheme since Ma Junren's army of female distance runners emerged from their high-altitude Tibetan training camp - fuelled, he said, by little more than turtle blood - to destroy the competition at the 1...