It would have been interesting to have seen him compete to see how the testosterone improved his performance. Perhaps there will be an Icarus 2? Are there no long term side effects to taking the amount of testosterone he was taking? He didn't seem too bothered by putting all that shit in his body.

Even when you weight 140 pounds it is not that great (not that bad either). It would put you in the cat. 3 range.

That's just it. He knew the race purported that they WOULD be tested. The race director speaks of this in the athlete meeting - on film.

What's a bit funny is that he then seems to find out that they actually don't test. I guess his whole narrative about being able to dope and still test clean kind of goes down the drain at that moment.

Another thing worth mentioning is that most or all athletes at the highest level (athletes on the whereabouts system) would not be able to dope like this guy as you would get popped the very first time someone showed up at your door in an out-of-competition test. Most on this board might know this, but I'm not sure most of the audience of this documentary does.

So... In all sports they had dopers... Begs the question which Russian triathletes are using?

Fairly certain Grigory did say at one point in time that Bryan would need 2 week minimum before testing so it was in there but I'm not entirely sure how clear that would be for someone unfamiliar with it.

He did compete that year...and finished worse than the year before. My gut feel is he may have unconsciously "self-sabotaged"...

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My bet is he intended to make a film about him doping as an amateur...and document his 'improvement' and success....with probably the climax of the film is him turning down a prize...ideally.

But, when he got connected to Rodchenko, he quickly realized he had a bigger, better story to tell....Rodchenko's.

My recollection of how it unfurled...(which is what I found interesting...it filled in a ton of gaps) as to how it went from suspicion to confirmation.
My timeline is a little hazy. But I remember reading an article or interview or something with someone who indicated someone big from Russia *might* be spilling some beans.
It could have been an interview with the UCLA lab guy......or another journalist close to the film maker, etc. It might have been an interview with that film maker. And would align with that early visit by Rodchenko to set up the doping program? Whow knows. I just remember hearing that serious stuff was gonna go down. And this was before WADA et. al. launched their formal investigations.

It was "a long time"....many months? a year? Before the Times article came out with the KGB, holes in the wall details and so on. I remember reading that article. And I remember, this...THIS...is who they were talking about in that earlier article. But, I also remember thinking that Rodchenko was the guy who was all but named in that previous article. And I remember thinking....with all that heat, how did they not get to him? Not that I completely suspect Russia of assassination or imprisonment or something. There's certainly ways they could have convinced him to cooperate with their narrative or voluntarily "disappear". A nice dacha by the sea and a new identity or something. But, he held all the cards. The heat was on. And they virtually let him go.

Either way, Rodchenko makes a hell of a lot more interesting story than "I doped, it worked and I got away with it until I unveiled my secret". Fascinating character. An evil genius? A genius with the proverbial gun to his head forced to do wrong? Was this a last act of defiance to clear his conscious that had bothered him all along or a way out as the noose was tightening and he'd make a great scapegoat for Russia/RUSADA/etc. I can't tell if I have any sympathy for him or not. Which makes for a terrific story.

Happy families...they are indeed, all alike.

Well he had a mechanical.I'm guessing he would have gone Ok though with his FTP improvements.

Yeah...and that mechanical was "forgetting to charge the Di2 battery" :-/

I'll bet that was the beginning of the wheels coming off (metaphorically) for him mentally. IIRC, his placing declined even further after that.

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I though it was pretty good overall. The last 2/3 was better than the first 1/3 in my opinion. The parts about his doping experiment and the Haute route seemed a little slow and a bit self indulgent, and if they were going to include that in the film after it pivoted unexpectedly to the Russia scandal, they should've at least followed up with his drug test results post dope. The story behind Russia and Rodchenkov was more interesting to me. I hadn't heard all of the details or Rodchenkov's perspective before.

Good insight. This is very possible.

The initial clips of the race on 'riods looked to me like he was over-biking the hell out of his bibs. Then the Di2 thing, seemed to be convenient & concocted.

Besides not enough time and training, I don't think he's got the basic goods to P1 it. What's the math? How much can you extract using PEDs? My rough calcs based on say 100M dopers, are at best to 10%. improvement.

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i really enjoyed it even though it was really 2 shorts slapped together as 1 feature documentary. my thoughts:

(1) how creepy was the anti-aging md?
(2) how many triathletes work with the creepy md?
(3) fogel looked like just a recreational cyclist but then claimed that he was 14th in a race i never had heard of that he billed as the hardest amateur race in the world -- then gets doped up and does worse (even with the di2 charging failure it's not like he claimed he was killing it). how has he done in other cycling races (if he ever has done any)?
(4) he never explained why DOJ was going to arrest grigory. it's not against US law to be doping russia athletes in russia so there must have been more going on that wasn't told.
(5) it's shocking to think that grigory used to be a somewhat competitive runner. talk about letting oneself go to $hit.
(6) how much did putin pay boch to get most of the russian team in rio and all of it in next year's winter olympics?
(7) who was paying for the drugs fogel was taking and for grigory's trips back-and-forth when it still was a super-size-me-doping movie?
(8) is fogel off the dope and, if he is, what are some of his side effects?

So is Fogel now banned from any racing for the next 4 years?

Should be. Pretty clear evidence he doped and raced without a TUE. I also doubt he got the all clear from WADA or USADA to conduct his doping experiment.

Agreed. Wonder if the other top guys in that race were clean? If it's so easy to get testosterone, has to be AGers taking the stuff (I know this is a huge thread on its own). My friend raced IM and he's a 2x rowing olympian was asked to get tested but he couldn't make the test b/c he was traveling to the race. They didn't care and he still raced.

Would this mean Lance actually should still be considered an all time great? It's not all about the dope!

What I wanted to see was him explaining how he got into this mess to the WADA & IOC officials in that big meeting they had. "Today, I, some random competitive amateur cyclist will be Grigory's spokesperson because he was helping me dope and cheat your system."

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Haute route is very well known. Certainly in europe

Lemond and mercx are hardly the picture of health

I got that feeling too. It felt like he just fell into an opportunity. Had a inside scoop with the doctor and ran with it. The doctor got his escape from russia.

Yes, my understanding is that a certain proportion of samples get the CIR test for exogenous testosterone performed on them, even if they don't have a suspicious T:E ratio. He'd get popped the first time one of his samples had that test done on it. IIRC someone on this forum posted about failing the testosterone test, I think it was a few years ago now, and it had been quite a long time since they had last used exogenous testosterone when the CIR test was able to detect it.

well an interesting issue on the long term effects was brought up... how they sourced products (china). some underground labs produce low quality products that who knows - perhaps is the reason why many athletes who dope get cancer? it would be interesting to follow all the russian dopers now, cause supposedly they used the most purist product

i really loved how this movie completely derailed from a predictable finish and held on to the newly generated story. oscar worthy.

The guy who won that race, Peter Pouly, has a dubious history. He races on the Asia circuit and is very unpopular with other riders, according to cyclingiq - short on specifics though.

Has had 12 month doping ban and been dq'd for mechanical doping

He sounds completely clean

Ha ha yeah the producers would been mouths agape as the whole saga unfolded, going from doing a doco about an amateur doping to having one of the guys in the doco in the witness protection program to protect him KGB assassination!