Summaries

Synopsis

Lance Armstrong won Tour De France 7 times and never tested positive for drugs. He was tested 500+ times. He was only caught when his teammates testified against him. The anti-doping system didn't work. Don Catlin runs the drug testing labs and says that all athletes take drugs and with knowledge you can get around the testing all the time.Bryan Fogel is an amateur cyclist. In 2014 He attempted the toughest amateur cycling competition, the Haute Route. After 7 days, 1000 mikes, he was destroyed and finished 14th. He competed completely clean. Bryan teams up with Catlin, who offers to custom create a doping program for Bryan, so he could beat any doping test and win the cycling races. Bryan wanted to prove that if can do it, anyone can. But Catlin backs out as he is worried about his own reputation and connects Bryan to Grigory Rodchenkov.

While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, Bryan Fogel connects with Russian scientist Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of Russia's national anti-doping laboratory. Rodchenkov creates a plan for Fogel to take banned performance-enhancing drugs in a way that will evade detection from drug-testing, helping Fogel's experiment to prove that the current way athletes are tested for drugs is insufficient. Bryan's performance goes up 20% instantly. Grigory asks Bryan to collect his urine and put it in the freezer at specific points in time. Grigory eventually guides Bryan to Lance Armstrong's doping protocols.As Fogel continues his training, he and Rodchenkov become friends, and Rodchenkov eventually reveals that Russia has a state-sponsored Olympic doping program that he oversees.

When allegations emerge in the international media (on Dec 9th, 2017) over the possible existence of such a program (99% of Russian athletes were suspected to be doping and being supported by Russian Govt to evade doping tests), WADA president Craig Reedie was under pressure to do something and set up an independent commission under Richard Pound and Richard McLaren was a member. Grigory is under investigation but continues to guide Bryan over Skype. he has been doping for 2 months now.

Grigory travels to the US (in May 2015) to meet Bryan and get his urine samples back to Russia to certify. It is revealed that Catlin trained Grigory in the 80's in the US. At that time US wanted to befriend Soviet Russia and invited Russian scientists to train alongside US ones, in anti-doping procedures. Grigory was among the first batch. Grigory was an athlete himself but was not national level material and hence went into lab testing and grew to become a director of the Russian anti-doping lab, certified by WADA.Grigory is under investigation by the WADA committee but is not worried. He asks Bryan to continue his doping and training regime. Grigory returns to Russia. Haute Route is just 3 weeks away. Grigory guides Bryan on when to inject his last drugs and how to evade doping tests in Europe.

Bryan finishes stage 1 in 11th position. But his gear fails and by the 4th stage, he is down to the 24th position. Eventually, Bryan finishes 27th. In Sep 2015, Bryan travels to Russia to start the 2nd stage of doping. Grigory and Bryan become good friends.

In November 2015, the commission releases its report. They found most of the allegations to be true. Samples destroyed, cover-ups, and payments of money to conceal doping tests in Russian WADA labs. The recommend Grigory to be removed from his position and the WADA recognition of the lab be withdrawn, and the Russian sports federation be suspended. Grigory is forced to resign. Grigory has a call with Bryan and says that he might be in danger from Russian state authorities and the sports minister asked him to resign. He says that Russian Govt rejected the commission report and continue to lie about their involvement.The next day, the IAAF votes to suspend Russia track and field athletes from the RIo Olympics. Putin announces his own internal investigation. Grigory begs Bryan to get him out of Russia.Fogel realizes that Rodchenkov is in danger of being "silenced" by the Russian government and has him flown to Los Angeles for his protection.Using Rodchenkov's knowledge of the doping program, they speak to the U.S. Department of Justice as well as the New York Times, alleging that Russia has conspired to cheat in the Olympics for decades (he claims that 30/73 medals in Beijing were dirty, 50% of the 81 medals in London were tainted by the state sponsored doping program), and he was hired to ramp up the operation after the Russian team's embarrassing performance in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

In the past the Russian state doping program was run by Porugalov. All the Anabolics were purchased from China, which were pure and undetectable. Portugalov was feeding these to athletes, and they became Olympic champions. But in 2008, China became an Olympic host and agreed to IOC request to stop producing and exporting Anabolics. Portugalov procured drugs from other sources, but they had impurities and his athletes started testing positive in large numbers.Grigory was the head of the testing lab and brought in drugs from another pure source to save the Russian athletics team. Portugalov was cut out, and he had Grigory arrested. Grigory tried to commit suicide and was only saved by his wife. He was sent to a mental institution.But in 2012, WADA wanted Grigory to attend the London games and understand WADA testing procedures. They didn't find any other candidate as qualified as Grigory. Russia had no choice, but to agree since knowledge of testing procedures would save the athletes and help win medals. Putin got the charges against Grigory dropped.

In Feb 2016, Grigory's college Nikita Kamaev is found dead in Russia. Grigory says that Russian sports minister Mutko is a KGB man. He has no morals and is capable of killing everybody.In May 2016, Grigory is subpoenaed by 2 FBI agents to appear before a grand jury. Grigory will have to agree to cooperate to avoid jail time. But once that happens, he cannot go public with his story. Grigory decides to go public prior to his grand jury appearance. He gives his story to the NYT, before going to the grand jury. The FBI decides to cancel the deal and move ahead with prosecuting Grigory on mass conspiracy charges.

On camera, Rodchenkov testifies that at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, with the help of the Federal Security Service (who devised a procedure to open the Bereg kit urine sample bottles without destroying their caps, which is also standard procedure. So, they could easily swap the samples in the bottles that were sent to the lab & close the unbroken lids again, without anyone knowing), he and his team switched steroid-tainted urine of the Russian national team with clean samples (Russia asked athletes to use drugs during the events to maximize performance and enhance their medals tally), evading positive detection. KGB held the clean urine samples of all athletes whose samples needed to be replaced. Russia won an unprecedented 13 gold medals, 33 overall. Putin's popularity soared and after the games, he attacks Ukraine.

Based on his video records, US DOJ open a formal investigation into the doping allegations at Sochi Olympics. WADA also meets Grigory. Russia moves to discredit Grigory.Grigory provides spreadsheets, discs, e-mails, and more incriminating evidence of Russian involvement, forcing the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee to investigate. In June 2016, WADA upholds the entire evidence and bans the entire Russian Track and Field team from the Rio Olympic games.After WADA's independent investigation confirms Rodchenkov's claims, U.S. Law Enforcement places him in protective custody. Rodchenkov's lawyer, Jim Walden, appears briefly in the film describing the threats to Rodchenkov's life and the suspicious deaths of two of Rodchenkov's associates.Russia says state was not involved and Grigory was operating solo, on his own. WADA bans entire Russian team from Rio, not just track and field. IOC refuses to ratify WADA's ban and allows Russia to compete at the Rio Olympics.

The film ends stating that the Russian government continues to deny it had any involvement with the program and that Rodchenkov remains in protective custody. McLaren released his final report in Dec 2016 stating that more than 1000 Russian athletes were part of this program. 1666 documents were made public supporting this claim.Full Russian team will participate in 2018 Pyonyang winter Olympic games and they will host the 2018 FIFA world cup.