Icarus (2017)

Talk about giving your all for your art? Well Bryan Fogel gives his ass too as he embarks on a course of testosterone injections under the guidance of Grigory Rodchenkov to prove just how to bust the WADA testing regimens that govern international sport. This is all hot on the heels of the Lance Armstrong scandal that caused cycling to reel with the shock that despite his often publicly issued denials, he was knowingly taking performance enhancing drugs as he won his seven Tours de France. Rodchenkov isn't just any old rogue scientist; he's the director of the accredited clinic in Moscow that is charged with carrying out the very testing Fogel is determined to prove is flawed. Now Americans love a good old Putin-backed conspiracy theory and so I was initially inclined to take the evidence gathered with a pinch of salt - especially as the camera seems to accompany them into places that it might not be welcome and Rodchenkov seems quite capable of playing to it, but as he appears prepared to flee to the USA and there share many of his document-backed secrets, this does start to ring more true and illustrate just how much effort was gone into by the Russian Federation to ensure their athletes came home with the medals. Elaborate schemes that may have involved the FSB, but that certainly involved the sports ministry of the government, were devised to access the tainted samples of urine and substitute them with "clean" ones. There is no suggestion that those testing were complicit, but evidence goes on to prove that dozens of samples had been tampered with before the laboratories got anywhere near them. Curiously enough, the more arbitrary the denials made by the indignant authorities, the more WADA's investigations present what looks like water-tight conclusions. They can't both be telling the truth. The latter half of this film shifts more from his investigation to something altogether more political. Presented with such a slew of evidence, will Thomas Bach's IOC have the courage to ban the Russian athletes from their events? Will Lord Coe's IAAF do likewise with their championships? What this doesn't feature, aside from Armstrong, are any admissions of guilt from anyone currently participating which I think would have lent more support to the allegations and explore a little more of the voluntary/involuntary participation by athletes, but what we do see here is a clear indictment of a billion-pound industry that always seems to be one step ahead of the game and that will stop at little to ensure the capture their prize.