They’re all ranked among the top 10 Americans of all time in their events—Droddy in the marathon, True in the 10,000 meters, Bayer in the steeplechase.
And they were all dropped by their sponsors at the end of 2020.
This news took a while to seep out—after all, athletes don’t tend to publicize it when their sponsors reduce their pay or stop supporting them altogether. But Droddy, 30, and True, 35, have been open about their status and confirmed it in calls with
Runner’s World (both had been sponsored by Saucony), and Bayer told the
that Nike dropped him and he has left the sport, at age 31, for a job in software engineering.