I believed Lance Armstrong. Sucker. Big sucker, me. Strangely, I never believed Barry Bonds. Is there racism in these two thoughts? I hope not, but maybe. Here’s the thing: Barry and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa turned into monsters. Almost literally. Barry had been a lean, athletic power hitter for years with the Pirates. Suddenly, he’s a Giant in more ways than one – and he gains 20 pounds of upper body strength without losing any bat speed? You will forgive my skepticism, but it was darn easy to believe a dude who went from Mark Wahlberg to The Rock and became a world-class jerk in the process was doping.
Lance Armstrong? Well, every single tour event involves a looooooooong continuous bicycle ride. That’s three to five hours on a bike every day without stopping. What’s the first thing you do when you’ve been sequestered for five hours straight? You gotta pee, right? It’s not like tour events have bathroom breaks. So after finishing every leg on every tour, Lance would de-saddle and head to the restroom escorted by an official specifically there to watch him pee (?!) … and Lance came up clean every.single.time. And it wasn’t once or twice or six times or a dozen times. Lance Armstrong had over 500 drug checks in his racing career. And he passed every single one of them. If he’s guilty, this is one of the greatest cover ups in sports history.
Guess what? It was one of the greatest cover-ups in sports history.
Lemme start over: Nobody cheats like the Russians. Not even Lance. Nobody. One wonders if all Russian society is based on “the ends justify the means.” Russian history speaks volumes to that effect. This particular film morphs after 40 minutes to modern Russian history, so let me set it up: Director Bryan Fogel is a normal guy who is really good at biking – not Tour de France good, but the kind of good that might impress the neighbors. Being a bicyclist, he was curious about blood doping … specifically, how it’s done and how easy it is to cheat. So, he contacts a moral vacuum salesman by the name of Grigory Rodchenkov, who is the director of Russia’s anti-doping lab, and the two set up a program for Bryan to cheat at his next bicycle event. It’s spooky how easy this was to set up and how willing Russia’s head anti-doping guy was to play along.
There are several takeaways from Bryan’s experience, but the key ones are: 1) Oh yeah, performance enhancement cheating is easy if you know what you’re doing and 2) unfortunately, drugs can’t make something that isn’t there already. Lance Armstrong was cheating, yes, but only he could achieve what he achieved through cheating. Does that make sense? Never mind.
Film-wise, the key dope is Rodchenkov slowly being revealed as the architect behind decades of Russian cheating at the Olympics. And it is decades. Growing up, my friends and I always joked the Russians were cheating and several films as much as a said so with all Eastern Bloc opponents. But nobody had proof. We sure as heck do now. Thing is, this reveal goes all the way to the inner matryoshka, comrade. When Sochi hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics, Vladimir Putin wanted no chances taken with Russian excellence what with being the host country and all. For those games, Russians not only masked the pre-event cheating but went on cheating during the Olympics for maximum medalage. You see, if you set up the Olympic urine testing site right next to the cheating storage lab with the secret tunnels, well, gosh, being the host country rules!
Do you ever stop to think exactly how much Donald Trump owes Vladimir Putin? The anti-doping agency found over 100 documents describing Russian cheating. That accompanied testimony from the people who administered the cheating. WADA (The World Anti-Doping Agency) suggested the entire Russian contingent be banned from Rio in 2016. What did Putin do? Denied and attacked. To this day, Putin has admitted nothing and acts as if he’s been cheated. And, yes, the Russians competed in Rio because the IOC bent. Americans, does that sound familiar at all? The part where the amoral blowhard huffed and puffed and lied and lied until he got his way? It ought to. I say Trump owes half his political playbook [read: pamphlet] to Vladimir.
This docudrama is aptly named for mythological Greek overachiever Icarus. As you might recall, the hemisemidemigod received tainted ichor treatments to excel at the high jump in the first Olympics; he was subsequently caught and banned from all future Olympic Games, but secretly competed in Moscow, 1980, under the name “Ikarovna.” This documentary is a tad depressing, of course, but weirdly thrilling; if you’re a fan of bicycling or the Olympics, this is a must see.
Those Russkys proved hard to defeat
Wherever you see athletes meet
From that well comes a draw
An old Russian saw,
“Comrade, when in doubt, cheat”
Rated TV-MA, 120 Minutes
Director: Bryan Fogel
Writer: Jon Bertain, Bryan Fogel, Mark Monroe, Timothy Rode
Genre: Cheating!
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of endurance sports, investigators
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The IOC
