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Icarus Review Legal Doping
Icarus Review: Legal Doping
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Icarus Review: Legal Doping
Icarus is a documentary by Bryan Fogel who is the director. The documentary begins with the documentation of Bryan Fogel on his own journey on drug enhancement experiments. The documentary begins by featuring Lance Armstrong a famous cyclist who was accused of using performance-enhancing drugs, his entire life he denied it till in 2013 where he admitted to have used it. In order to accomplish this, he consults an anti-doping scientist at UCLA who runs World Anti-Doping Agency laboratory test in the United States. At first he is on board but layer on he fears his legacy may be ruined and he thus recommends Fogel to a Russian Scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov who worked in a WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) lab in Russia a mastermind also behind Russia’s government sponsored doping program.
Grigory Rodchenkov was guiding Fogel through the doping program. He had created drug enhancing drugs some made up of HCG others Hormone testosterone and he was supposed to inject himself. He got the help of Redchenkov to try and smuggle his urine after the injections so as to run samples in the lab. During this process Rodchenkov openly admitted that these nefarious methods were being used to enhance performance of some of the famous athletes in Russia and it is through doping that in the Sochi Winter Olympics Russia was able to take away 13 gold medals an all-time high for Olympics and was also the top ranking country when it came to medal rankings (Gilbert, 2017). It is the admission of Rodchenkov on Russia’s doping of athletes that made Fogel to try and understand deeper how the doping rig worked.
Fogel, the main protagonist and is also an amateur cyclist wants to cheat in the Haute Route a competition in France. He performs dismally even than the last year but this may have been because of the issues with his bike. With his race out of the way and having proved how easy it is to cheat and one may get away with it, the series now delves deeper into how deep the doping rig goes. The movie shows how most Russia athletes for years have been able to dope and gotten away with it with the help of the Russia anti-doping lab and help of the government. As the scandal unfolds it can be seen as a huge doping scandal bigger than BALCO or even the Ma Junren of China. The documentary features the German TV that aired an expose on Russia’s doping and the Story of a young couple Stepanovs who rattled their government for participating in doping.
After the German expose was run, Rodchenkov house was raided and he was supposed to be arrested however he would later receive a call that his charges have been drooped. He attributes this to President Putin as he knew how deep the doping scandal would be. Another instance of deviance portrayed in the film is the swapping of urine samples. From the documentary we learn that close to the lab, there was a storage for clean urine samples and it is in this KGB facility where clean urine samples were taken and replaced with urine samples of athletes who may not be clean. The samples for testing by WADA are collected in Berlinger security bottles that are hard to open but the KGB had figured ways that they could open the bottles and swap the urine samples and thus when samples were ran they came out clean. With claims that the bottles had been tampered, forensic evidence were running on the samples and there were marks present that proved that (Jaworowski, 2017).
The expose is so deep that people who were part of the documentary feared for their lives that they had to travel out of Russia. Some anti-doping officials died in the course of the expose including Dr. Nikita Kamaev who was an ex-chief anti-doping officer. Nikita was a close friend to Rodchenkov and he comments in the documentary that he suspects foul play in the death of his longtime colleague and comments that he also fears for his life. In a skype video between Rodchenkov and Bryan he states that “t’s a disaster, they’re killing people, cutting heads”. This pretty changes the course of the movie as now Fogel works not only to expose the truth but to also ensure that Rodchenkov is safe. This expose leads to expulsion of Russia from participating in the Olympics. In light of how easy it is to dope and get away with it, then it is important to look at the argument on legal doping.
Many athletes who have failed their doping tests have often pointed out that almost every single person in the sports world does doping and while some may not be found, it could be because of the level of corruption that runs deep both in WADA and in the Olympics world (Mazanov, 2010). There are several reasons that have often been pointed out as to why doping is illegal. First doping often has detrimental effect to one’s physical and mental health later in life because of the hormones used. The second reason is that those that are involved in doping do not give a fair chance to other players or athletes because their strength has been enhanced and lastly is in sports there needs to be a drug-free sport as using these drugs goes against the spirit of the sport. There are five classes of drugs that have been banned in sports and they include anabolic steroids, human growth hormones, stimulants, diuretics and erythropoietin (McNamee, 2011).
The most common drugs used are the steroids and the stimulants. While the steroids help in building muscle thus improving the athletic performance, stimulants on the other hand helps in increasing endurance focus and speed. Most of these athletes tend to use these drugs to help them be biter. Melly Cabrera and Bartolo Colon are two baseball players that were accused of doping and they were likely to face a 50-game suspension as they had used testosterone. Lance Armstrong who was stripped away of all his titles in the Tour de France titles was also found having doped on steroids and he was banned from ever participating.
It is crystal clear steroid doping and use of other illicit performance drugs is a problem that may not go away and the athletic fraternity needs to have an honest conversation with themselves on what best they can do to stop this. Legalizing doping is an honest conversation that should be tabled. The only valid reason on why performance enhancing drugs are banned is that they give the users unfair advantage over their competitors. Professionals have often tried to set a level playing field but at times it can never be fair. An example is the case of Michael Phelps his biological features including is hormonal balance gave him an unfair advantage which helped him win almost in every race. Another case is Caster Semenya who has Difference of Sexual Development thus has testosterone in her blood has also often won almost all races she has participated in breaking records. Recently however because of the unfair disadvantage she has she was asked to take suppressing hormones so that she could compete. Instead of demonizing people for their advantage, I believe we can let people do what they deem the best way they can win including use of PDEs (Wiesing, 2011).
If PDE’s enhance performance thus giving an athlete an unfair advantage what about the gears used. The sports industry is known for developing better gear for certain that gives runners an unfair advantage. Nike released a set of shoes referred to as the vapor fly and there were debated on the gray area that exists between innovation and the vague rules on unfair performance. In swimming, there were fears on full-body suits but were later banned in 2008. The truth of the matter is no matter how fair we want the sports world to be it can never really be fair and certain athletes will always have an unfair advantage over other athletes.
Allowing legal doping will increase the level of competition in a game. These drugs actually do not alter the results really much but an athlete becomes better and stronger just a little. They still have to work and train really hard in order to be better. An example is Foley from the documentary even with the drugs, he performed dismally yet there were people who won. One interesting reasons that we watch sports is to see the peak of human athletic ability thus legalizing the use of the performance enhancing drugs will help athletes probably unlock higher human abilities that we are yet to see. Steroids are likely to help pitchers throw harder, home runs will be able to go father, athletes will run faster, cyclists could cycle for longer and all these will test the human limit (Smith, 2017).
Legalizing PEDS would make it easier for professionals tasked with ensuring there is no doping. There is a blurry line when it comes to determining what can be seen as a performance enhancing drug and what is not. For example, baseball has strict rules on use of stimulants such as methamphetamine and ephedrine but no regulations on caffeine. Athletes are also not allowed to use growth hormones yet it is necessary for recovery yet they can use creatine which helps build the muscles. Another reason we should allow legal doping is looking at it from a business point of view. In 1990 when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa displayed remarkable baseball seasons between 1998 and 1999 everyone became vested in sports including cursory fans. When McGwire shattered Roger Maris’ 37-year-old single season home run, there was a total ticket sold out, jerseys were sold off and the baseball game was so exciting.
It is for a fact that doping will enhance athlete’s performance and because it is already so deep in the sports world it should be legalized, However, there are health implication that arises from doping including organ damage such as liver cancers. It can also result in infertility and women may have male like features such as deepened voice and increased body hair especially if testosterone is used. Hypertension and heart problems including heart attacks may occur. Doping has also been linked to mental issues including anxiety and hallucination as well as permanent psychosis (Schneider, 2006). The health effects however may be regulated by legal doping. Research can be conducted on the best drugs the athletes can use and they can be given the right dosage instead of relying on back ally routes to get the PEDs.
In conclusion, Icarus brings up a conversation we should have on doping. Although the documentary only shows how deep doping was in Russia with the help of the government the question is which other countries are doing the same for their athletes? If one can try and pull it off, then there are other countries only that they have not been caught up with. Use of performance enhancing drugs will not go away any time soon. More great athletes have found themselves in this position and their only reason for doping is they wanted to be better thus should not be punished. Players will continue doping despite the rules just hoping they do not get caught. Legalizing use of steroids and stimulants will set the bar for competition so high and probably unlock human limits we have not seen before.
References
Gilbert, S. (2017, August 7). In ‘Icarus,’ a Doping House of Cards Tumbles Down. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/icarus-review-netflix/535962/Jaworowski, K. (2017, August 3). Review: In ‘Icarus,’ Unexpectedly Exploring the Russian Doping Scandal. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/movies/icarus-review.html
Mazanov, J., & Connor, J. (2010). Rethinking the management of drugs in sport. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 2(1), 49-63.
McNamee, M., & Møller, V. (Eds.). (2011). Doping and anti-doping policy in sport: Ethical, legal and social perspectives. Routledge.
Schneider, A. J., & Friedmann, T. (2006). The problem of doping in sports. Advances in genetics, 51, 1-9.
Smith, C. (2013, July 3). Why It’s Time To Legalize Steroids In Professional Sports. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2012/08/24/why-its-time-to-legalize-steroids-in-professional-sports/#4623d89665d2
Wiesing, U. (2011). Should performance-enhancing drugs in sport be legalized under medical supervision?. Sports medicine, 41(2), 167-176.
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