Putin was at the heart of the Russia drug scandal

Putin was at the heart of the Russia drug scandal

Grigory Rodchenkov is making a Skype call from somewhere in America to his wife Veronica, back in Russia.

The 58-year-old scientist, a key figure for at least nine years in Russia’s state-supported doping programme, is calling to say goodbye, perhaps forever.

For a long time to the outside world Rodchenkov was the respected head of Moscow’s anti-doping lab and outwardly a leading advocate for clean sport. But he had been living a double life.

First he had helped hundreds of Russian sportspeople to cheat their way to glory on performance-enhancing drugs, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2012 London Games and the 2014 Sochi Olympics in Russia, among other places.

Later when exposed — including by this newspaper, firstly in 2013 — he fled to the United States.

Now he is explaining to his wife that he is about to enter the US Federal Witness Protection Program. He is not entirely sure where he will live, or under what identity.

It appears Veronica found out only recently that her husband was about to become Russia’s Most Wanted.

The scene comes in footage filmed in summer 2016. Few people know now where Rodchenkov is. Bryan Fogel, the filmmaker who tells Rodchenkov’s story in a new documentary, Icarus, certainly doesn’t.

The film, which had a world premiere at the Sundance Festival in Utah on Friday, attended by The Mail on Sunday, also shows Fogel saying farewell to Rodchenkov, at Los Angeles airport, last summer.

If this all sounds like some Cold War thriller then the reality is even more bizarre, and chilling, Rodchenkov remaining visible only on the silver screen. Possibly it will stay that way. To some he is a brave whistleblower who eventually shared with the authorities his role in a massive sporting deception, as illegal as it was immoral.

To others, including Russian president Vladimir Putin, he is a ‘scandalous’ traitor who enriched himself via corruption, recklessly damaging his nation’s sport as well as his country’s reputation. The truth, as ever, lies in the shadows between.

Fogel’s 110-minute film started out with the premise that he, as a recreational athlete, would experiment with doping products and record it.

There is certainly a goofy, amateurish feel to the first hour of Icarus, with Rodchenkov almost clownish at first, dishing out advice from afar.

Fogel is not clued up enough at this stage, in 2014, to be aware of Russia’s doping system and is ignorant of Rodchenkov’s role in it.

Realisation dawns when Rodchenkov announces: ‘I am Mafia … Putin knows me.’

The revelations that follow are extraordinary. Even the way Fogel met Rodchenkov beggars belief. Fogel first approaches Don Catlin — a figure long seen as leader of the modern anti-doping movement — to help him dope.

Catlin appears to agree and then changes his mind, recommending an old friend, Rodchenkov, instead. Catlin is asked on camera why Rodchenkov would be helpful and says: ‘I could answer that question but it doesn’t make Grigory look good.’

The clear message is Catlin knew Rodchenkov was a doping specialist even while still in situ as head of Moscow’s lab. The Mail on Sunday asked Catlin on Sunday why he hadn’t personally helped Fogel to dope.

He said in an email: ‘Lab directors are under signed oath not to aid or abet dopers. I was interested in the results of such a study. I did not want to incur the wrath of WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency].’

Tags:

olympics athletics doping Vladimir Putin Russian doping Grigory Rodchenkov

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