One scene shows WADA officials Olivier Niggli, Beckie Scott and Christiane Ayotte and the IOC’s Athletes’ Commission Chair Claudia Bokel reacting with shock at Rodchenkov’s account, including details of what drugs dozens of athletes had been taking. It gives details of what it says is a massive government doping project, alleging secret service involvement and describing an intricate program of sample-swapping and bottle-tampering at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. The story of Rodchenkov’s relationship with Fogel and how, in fear of his life, he left his family and friends behind, is documented in the film now available on Netflix. Last week a Russian warrant was issued for Rodchenkov’s arrest. He said he was in fear of his life after two other senior former Russian anti-doping officials, Nikita Kamayev and Vyacheslav Sinev, died suddenly within weeks of each other in February 2016. Rodchenkov fled Russia and is now in hiding in the United States. His account, first published in the New York Times, led to the establishment of Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren’s independent report for WADA, which backed up his account. “What he told me, and showed me, was jaw-dropping, astonishing, frightening and worrying,” Fogel told Reuters. WADA dismissed his comments about its powers and the IOC declined to comment.įogel had set out to make a film showing the impact of self-administered performance-enhancing drugs on his amateur cycling efforts, but during the research he was introduced to Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of Russia’s anti-doping program.įogel said that after a few conversations he realized he had stumbled across a story on an entirely different level as Rodchenkov gave details on the depths and complexity of doping in his homeland. Russia repeated its regular denials of Fogel’s accusations that it orchestrated mass doping. REUTERS/Jim YoungĪmerican Bryan Fogel, director of the documentary film Icarus, told Reuters that IOC president Thomas Bach had “betrayed clean athletes the world over by his failure to act decisively” and that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was “crippled by its mandate with no ability to take action”. FILE PHOTO: The Russian national flag and the Olympic flag are seen during the closing ceremony for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Russia, February 23, 2014.
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