Icarus and Russia — Why We Can’t Forget
Yeah we’re talking about the Russia investigation today — WADA’s Russia investigation… not that other Russia investigation (I know it’s confusing).
I’ve been incredibly fascinated with everything doping news ever since high school. It’s simply fascinating to me that there are methods such as blood doping and epo injections that can make a great athlete world class or a world class athlete unbeatable. An athlete can live at altitude or sleep in an altitude tent but the second he takes blood out of his body or puts something foreign into it he is doping — both produce similar results but the former methods are perfectly legal while the latter are cause for suspension from the sport.
It’s also incredible to find out the depths at which; athletes, coaches, agents and even government agencies are willing to go to cover up everything. This is where we find the Russia investigation… after reading the Mclaren report and just now finally watching Icarus and the fallout from it — I’m ready to give my point of view on the situation.
Lets start with the documentary ‘Icarus’ — the brain child of director Bryan Fogel, who sets up the documentary as an attempt to document the process of doping in an amateur cyclist. He then goes through the process of finding a WADA certified lab who would be complicit in testing him and discussing the results… he then is pointed in the direction of Russian doctor Grigory Rodchenkov. This is when the documentary takes a bit of a twist; it is during this testing and receiving Dr. Rodchenkov’s personal doping protocol that the news of WADA’s investigation breaks… i.e. the Mclaren report is made public. 151 pages of bad news for Russia’s Federation of Sport; in which the bombshell of the report entails specific details of a systemic cover up in which the goal was to own the medal count in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Dr. Rochenkov as it turns out was the mastermind who oversaw the whole operation while taking orders directly from the heads of the Federation.
Rodchenkov’s life was definitely in danger, he was participating in a documentary detailing how he knew all of the state secrets — including how they influenced the A and B samples in Sochi to ensure they would come back clean under any circumstances (seriously read the report, they passed bottles through a hole in the wall, through a secret room and even kept the clean samples in an adjacent KGB (or whatever they are now) stronghold). So Rodchenkov comes to America with the help of Fogel and speaks to both the New York Times and the FBI — this was enough to land him into witness protection because his life was indeed in danger. 2 friends of his in similar positions died within two weeks of each other under suspicious circumstances, so it is definitely reasonable to suggest that the Putin administration would not let him lead a free life.
Rodchenkov is a whistle blower but lets dive into what this all means, there is a clear blueprint that leads us directly to Vladamir Putin, why do we see so little doping violations? The answer is a state guarded WADA sanctioned doping lab located in Moscow. Why was Russia still allowed to compete in Rio in every sport besides Track & Field? Because unfortunately politics found it’s way into WADA’s decision — here we have a state sponsored doping scandal where the Russia Federation of Sport directors; taking directions directly from Putin himself, were still allowed to compete with other nations who weren’t trying to undermine the IOC. We have Russian whistle blowers competing under the IOC banner but not being given sanctuary from Russia itself… we have a country not complying with investigators even after sanctions had been passed down: yet as of next month could be fully reinstated. Here’s an idea! as long as Vladimir Putin is in power Russia should be banned from all international competition under the Russian banner. It is clear that Putin will not stand for failure and will throw the blame on everyone else (including the athletes) to save face in the international community and in Russia itself. As the documentary points out: as a result of Sochi’s excellence Putin achieved all time high approval ratings allowing him to immediately launch his operations in the Crimea without much opposition domestically. So it could be argued that Rodchenkov is indirectly responsible for the current political climate but I think the documentary does a good job of clearing Rodchenkov of such guilt — was he in the wrong? yes but he clearly had no idea what the ultimate goal was and clearly took pride in his athletes winning for personal and national glory.
This puts me in a weird situation of defending a Russian scientist who has caused alot of stress on the system while putting all of the blame on Putin and the Russian ruling class. I think this is fair though, after all without Rodchenkov’s information we wouldn’t know the depths at which Russia was willing to go to achieve international glory and fake national pride.
What does WADA do now?
WADA is in a tough position, we already know modern doping is hard to catch even with the advent of the biological passport. Just this week Ciarán Ó Lionáird has come public with his belief that micro dosing is untraceable within our current system. Not just that but it also appears that German television ARD (the ones who originally broke the Russian story) is getting ready to blow the doors off of a Chinese doping operation of similar scope during the 80’s and 90’s.
In conclusion I am torn on how to feel, I think it is naive to believe that we in the US aren’t witnessing a similar operation (Nike Oregon Project) and are completely not guilty of the same non-compliance but surely the scope of the Russia and China scandals separate us from them. It’s hard to separate entirely however; given that the current climate feels similar to the Lance Armstrong days — where it feels like everyone is complicit in a widespread doping cover up. I definitely don’t have all the answers but one thing WADA needs to do: be harder on drug cheats. First we need to see actual consequences and rewards for these situations — there needs to be a monetary consequence to deter athletes from even thinking about doping. There also needs to be rewards for clean athletes — when the first place athlete is found to be dirty the second place athlete needs to be compensated with the appropriate prize money instead of being given a consolation medal in a private ceremony.
Bottom line is: more needs to be done and we need to stop being complicate in the current sporting climate.
Happy Running,
Justin
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