My awesome cousin Linda Carlson was Executive Producer on this Oscar-Nominated documentary.
Icarus is a 2017 documentary film by Bryan Fogel which chronicles Fogel exploring the option of doping to win an amateur cycling race and happening upon a major international doping scandal when he asks for the help of Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory.
While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, Fogel connected with renegade Russian scientist, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, a pillar of his country Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program. Fogel and Rodchenkov realize they hold the power to reveal the major doping in sports through The New York Times on May 12, 2016.
They alleged Russia had orchestrated state sponsored fraud, conspiring to cheat the Olympics for decades, including the 2014 Sochi Olympics where Rodchenkov, with the help of the Federal Security Service (formerly the KGB) changing steroid-tainted urine of the Russian national team to evade positive detection. Fearing for his life, Rodchenkov fled to the United States with the help of Fogel.
On camera Rodchenkov testified to the scheme of swapping of Russian athletes’ urine samples so they would go undetected. Rodchenkov’s testimony became public in an extensive interview with The New York Times, where he provided spreadsheets, discs, e-mails, and more incriminating evidence of Russian involvement. Concerned for his well-being, the United States Department of Justice placed Rodchenkov in protective custody. Rodchenkov’s lawyer, Jim Walden, appears briefly in the film describing the threats to Rodchenkov’s life and the death of two of Rodchenkov’s associates.
Now streaming on Netflix.
