ICARUS: How Bryan Fogel Exposed The Biggest Doping Scandal In Olympic History

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“It appears that the consequences for truth are high.”

Bryan Fogel 

Last week I sat down with Lance Armstrong to explore his competitive drive for greatness, precipitous fall from grace, and path forward. Irrespective of your opinion on Lance or that conversation, his story leaves us all with an indelible question:

Just how far will we go to be considered the best?

Obsessed with this inquiry, Bryan Fogel decided to answer it for himself.

Struck by the fact that Lance never once failed a single drug test, the avid cyclist, playwright, and filmmaker decided to make a documentary with one goal in mind: to prove the system in place to detect doping athletes was bullshit.

Because what the world watches on its sports fields should not be taken for granted as truth.

Icarus was premised on an audacious idea: Bryan would undertake an aggressive doping protocol, experimenting with a wide variety of performance enhancing drugs. He would observe the changes in his athletic performance. He would attempt to evade detection. And finally, he would extensively and transparently document the entire experience, sharing the whole endeavor on film.

To guide him through the mysterious and byzantine process of doping, Bryan enlists the professional aid of Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, a renegade Russian scientist and then pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. As they grow closer, it becomes clear that Rodchenkov is in fact the central figure in what we soon discover is Russia’s vast and elaborate state-sponsored Olympic doping program – a program that can be traced to Russia’s highest chains of command, all the way up to Vladamir Putin.

When the two realize they hold the power to reveal the biggest international sports scandal in living memory, Bryan’s academic exercise in self-experimentation quickly pivots into spy thriller territory — a high-stakes and quite spectacular collision of politics, sports, espionage and danger more John LeCarré than Morgan Spurlock.

Icarus premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, where it won “The Orwell” Special Jury Award and the first ever Audience Choice Award at Sundance Film Festival London. It’s been called a “game-changing documentary” by Variety and “The Best Non-Fiction film of 2017” by the Financial Times and was acquired by Netflix in a historic sale.

Bryan and the story behind the film have been profiled in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times, Variety , USA Today, Newsweek, The Atlantic, and The Guardian. Bryan has also discussed the film on NPR’s All Things Considered, NBC’s Meet The Press, ABC Dateline, Charlie Rose, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Breakfast with the BBC.

An extraordinary portrait of self sacrifice in the interest of truth, Icarus is a gripping exposé that will forever color your perception of Olympic sport. But more than that, it’s a palpable glimpse into the dark realpolitik of the global sports arena and the staggering implications it has on our already strained geo-political landscape.

One of the best documentaries I have seen in recent memory, Icarus exemplifies the power of film to rewrite history.

Today, Bryan joins me to share his fascinating tale.

For the visually inclined, watch the podcast on YouTube.

I sincerely hope you enjoy this exchange.

Peace + Plants,

P.S. If you are moved by either the podcast or film to help Dr. Rodchenkov in his mission to make things right, please visit the GoFundMe page.

• Connect with Bryan: Website | Twitter
• ICARUS (Film): Netflix | Twitter | Facebook | Trailer
• GoFundMe: “How Is Gregory?” Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov campaign by The Fair Sport Team
• ABC News: ‘Icarus’: How an amateur cyclist stumbled into the secret world of Russian doping By Marjoree McAfee, Jenna Millman & Lauen Effron
• Charlie Rose: A look at the documentary “Icarus,” which explores Russia’s long-running, state-sponsored doping program, with director Bryan Fogel and producer Dan Cogan
• Late Night: Bryan Fogel Accidentally Documented the Russian Olympic Doping Scandal with Seth Meyers
• NY Times: Russia’s Olympic Cheating, Unpunished by Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov
• NY Times: Dissecting the Russian Doping Inquiry by Rebecca R. Ruiz
• NY Times: Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gold by Rebecca R. Ruiz and Michael Schwirtz
• NY Times: Willing to Blow the Whistle on Doping? New Legal Aid Group Wants to Help by Rebecca R. Ruiz
• NY Times: Nikita Kamayev, Ex-Head of Russian Antidoping Agency, Dies by Andrew E. Kramer
• ESPN: How an amateur cyclist helped expose the Russian Olympic doping scandal by Carl Carchia
• Vogue: Icarus Is a Sports Movie That’s Actually About Putin’s Russia by Julia Felsenthal
• Cycling Weekly: How a cyclist who doped to ride an amateur event blew open the Russian drug scandal by Hugh Gladstone
• IndieWire: How ‘Icarus’ Turned a Standup Comic Into an Investigative Journalist With a Netflix Deal by Anne Thompson
• Vulture: How Bryan Fogel Accidentally Documented the Russian Olympic Doping Scandal And helped its key player escape to the United States by Jada Yuan
• The Guardian: Icarus review – Netflix doping scandal doc is flawed but fascinating by Gwilym Mumford
• Business Insider: How a guy who injected PEDs to see the effects scored a Netflix deal and uncovered the biggest doping scandal in Olympics history by Jason Guerrasio
• The Atlantic: Icarus: A Doping House of Cards Tumbles Down by Sophie Gilbert
• NPR: ‘Icarus’ Filmmaker Talks Stumbling On International Doping Scandal with Stacey Vanek Smith
• Independent: How a doping experiment turned into an explosive exposé of Russia’s Olympic cover-up by Chris Evans
• Film: Man On Wire* by James Marsh
• Film: Super Size Me* by Morgan Spurlock