Icarus director Bryan Fogel on The Forward with Lance Armstrong

I was thinking that would start I ask you questions and you answer yes or no were you the mastermind that cheated the Olympics yes today the world anti-doping agency suspended Russia's sports drug testing lab 99% of Russian athletes are guilty of doping it's worse than we thought if this is true it is an unimaginable level of criminality I was nothing to facilitate one of the most elaborate doping ploys in a sport history this goes all the way back to 1968 every sport [Applause] was Putin aware of the existence of a Russian doping system yes do we have top-level cheaters this all can be proved it's quite mind-blowing New York Times is breaking tomorrow tomorrow it has the potential of affecting the credibility of all sport when I watch an event that's fixed [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] who in any danger yes oh I need to escape which I'm real kill me holy [ __ ] Putin calls the claims of the slander of a turncoat two people connected with the Russian doping program already dead there never was anti doping in Russia ever well Brian it's been an interesting journey we first met well we met through Tim Commerford that's right our mutual friend who's been on this podcast and Tim EC called and said dude my buddy's making a documentary you're not gonna believe it and it's gonna be so good for you and he's gonna he's gonna do this bike race in Europe and he's gonna dope for it and he did it last year he's gonna see how I can do better and he's gonna evade the tests and he wants to meet with you so we met April and April 2015 in Los Angeles yeah was it April yeah 20 we went back and looked yeah because we were curious cuz time just it's crazy how time flies right but I just never forget like you laying this thing out there and I said yeah I said who's who's helping do that like how do you know he said I have this Russian guy and at that when you first started to tell me the idea I was like this guy's [ __ ] crazy and then when you said you had a Russian guy then I was like okay I'm out this is not true this can't be happening and it's so [ __ ] crazy that it actually happened yeah and then I showed you that 25-minute piece that we had put together yeah I mean it's it's I don't know I don't know whether you're brilliant or lucky or all of the above to come across this story right I mean who did who didn't who'da thunk it I certainly didn't think of one I and when I when I started on it but you know I knew that going in that Gregory certainly had secrets and even in that piece that I had shown you back in April of 2015 there was all those like hints in there and I wasn't sure where it was gonna go to I couldn't have imagined you know ultimately what the information he had but it was clear that that he was involved in much right and you do a good job of going into it and Ikaros talking about I mean look for four and I guess I can speak to this from experience if you had access to a water accredited lab I guess anybody could probably go get their urine tested somewhere but it's a little different than going to a water lab so if you had access to that and you could try things and test it out and try things and says like that's that's the Holy Grail right and so I just couldn't believe that that was actually possible and and and in watching Icarus which it took me a while to come around and see this film for a whole lot of other reasons Don catlins role in the thing like Don Catlin who I've known forever everybody in this movement you know he's sort of an iconic figure you know the wake Don connected you with Gregory was it was surreal and I don't think you know what was interesting is you know Don basically originally was going to help me right and then his son got involved again Oliver was like this is not a good idea dad you know and like I don't think it's a good idea and so you know you ultimately decides that he's not gonna help me but one of the biggest variables for Don was also that he was no longer at the UCLA lab so he's going will I don't have access to a water lab how am I gonna get your samples into a water lab and and he refers me to Gregory but I mean he certainly referred me to Gregory knowing I think a lot more than he let on mm-hmm I mean he certainly didn't know the extent of what was going on he didn't know the urine swapping but he knew that that Gregory in that Russian lab was not on the up-and-up right in what you know I probably everybody that watch watches Icarus has to ask the question because you guys are talking on the phone skyping from LA to Moscow why does this guy Gregory the scientist the doctor why does he trust you like him just from a I don't really trust anybody at this point in my life but I'm like why is he believing you like you could be anybody you could be out to get him you could be out to to blackmail him you could like did you I mean you're a charming guy but Jesus nobody's that charming right no I mean look it was it was surreal in that regard right there's there's there's a story that's not in the film and a lot of it really had to do with just the creative storytelling and I had started corresponding with Gregory literally as Sochi was going on and we're emailing back and forth and I'm and he's up late at night yeah he's of late at night I guess what's the film you'll understand why he's up late at night and I guess while he's waiting for the clean urine to come to swap he's like emailing me yeah but oh my god this dude stays up yeah this is really strange yeah he's like yeah I'm at the Sochi Olympics and and and coming out of those Olympics I think he felt a huge just burden and and what Gregory said to me is that at the end of those Olympics and then in those couple months after there was nowhere further for him to go and I think he felt like this had essentially reached as he said it's it's you know it's its proper course that there was nowhere more that that that he could do as far as the scam the scandal that he had pulled off and so he invites me to come meet him he's lecturing at a symposium in Oregon for the I double AF part of the Junior World Championships that were in Oregon in July of 2014 so I go up there and I make a decision that I'm not gonna bring a film crew I'm just gonna go meet him and you know talk to him and we started hanging out he's a big drinker we drink we bond we become buddies and I sit him down and I've got my little Vixia camera this little handheld thing and he agrees let me interview him and I said hey do you believe an Olympic medal can be won without performance-enhancing drugs and he looks at me and he goes I should believe I tried to believe I want to believe but I do believe an Olympic medal can be won without performance-enhancing drugs and they takes this long pause and he goes I don't know maybe I'm a bad man there was a green light and that was a moment and and I then by the way I disagree with him I mean yeah I disagree with him I believe that Michael Phelps yeah I don't think Michael Phelps take speed yeah yeah but I disagree with him too and I believe that also but in Gregory's mine right I mean here's this guy who his entire life had been in this system I mean it's starting as a kid he was taught the way onto the national team is to take steroids and if you don't take steroids you're not gonna be on the national team and if you get on the national team and you don't want to take steroids you're not gonna be on the national team it was it was in the movie that was one of the times where he you were totally stumped because he's talking about he was a young aspiring runner and he was good he's getting to the next level to the national level he's given some steroid and he says and my mother and would inject me yeah and you were like wait wait wait wait time out your mother his mother was injecting that that's a little weird well because when you look at I think it's a difference where you know from our Western perspective our American perspective right we go wait no parent would condone their their child taking steroids no parent would help their child and yet the Russian perspective is that's just what you do and that's how everybody does it no but isn't it weird like um like in the but like that's I think that's a little strange I mean it's definitely strength he's a little close but you know I guess she wanted Gregory to win but he had a lot of those did you know at least during maybe you selected those or you know that was part of the narrative he had a lot of those moments because you had this this childlike old Russian guy not old but I don't how old is he's 58 but you know but he's childlike boyish yeah but he would say these things dark you need to talk about you know pornography and prostitution and I'm like wait that eight-year-old just started talking about prostitution oh wait no he's 50 something you couldn't figure but he was super super charming like he was like one of these dudes just like dancing around we love it one of my editors said he's like he's like baby Huey yeah that's right and and that's the thing but you never you never knew what was exactly coming and yet what ended up being the case is that every single thing he said was true yeah and so he'd say these outlandish things and we're going away this is true is it is this true and you know and sometimes you go away this can't be true and then it was true and then he proved it to be true that was like that's what happened with me and you yeah I was like this guy's this guy is batshit crazy and on top of it all he's full of [ __ ] I'm like I'm out and it's it's mind-boggling I got to tell you I was and I told you this on the phone a few weeks ago when I finally got around to watching Icarus I don't watch like I watched when I travel I watch stuff right here on this laptop and I can't download netflix at least I can't maybe you can I can't download movies on a laptop off Netflix so you can do it on your phone or your iPad right but I was like oh the phones too small and I don't have an iPad so I just never did but man it was like a cold jury day in Austin and Ann and I sat down or like let's watch it at home on Netflix and it was she was like she was like okay I can only watch half because I have to go to yoga etc etc it's like okay watch the second half later she's like I'm not leaving like screw that yoga I can't get up like it is that good folks I'm not I'm telling you this you know already know this but I'm telling the people listening at home and now watching at home 2018 we can watch this but where was I going with that so the the the premise originally started with you training for Haute Route which is is that you know is a European they now have it in America by the way yeah they brought to the to Colorado last year so you had done Haute Route in 2014 14 and you wanted to clean yeah clean right and I met you after I had done a clean right as I was starting to don't you're gonna in your the plan was to come back in 2015 charged up yeah with the hope that I'd went with the hope that you'd want it in your plan still be cleaning you were fourteenth right which is pretty dang good pretty good yeah I was recommended that when you're sitting in I don't know what you're sitting there that was up at the you know monthon - at the top of on - it didn't in that little coffee shop but everyone in it I don't know it wasn't a coffee shop it's like you could get it Taron could get a coke and i remember and i walked in i came in i basically collapsed off the bike like I go in there and I like grab like three sodas out of him she's like what are you doing what are you doing the French were freaking out and I'm just like on the floor I was I was so la yeah I know I know right yeah I know I was I was embarrassed but what are you know I was curious because I was watching I might have my own suspicions about amateur cycling I don't really know that I chime in about it much but you know I'm sure these guys are super strong the guys are super strong and winning I mean those guys and it's all guys you know the first year but it's all these guys that are basically 35 to 45 that takes cycling way to serious jobs that's that's the mystery of it because none of these guys are paid and yet they're training like they're professionals they're racing like the professionals and they're like 38 year old men taking risks on descents like you know like they're 18 that doesn't surprise you yeah please tell me any crit that you've done and in Balboa Park or Griffith Park you know you know what passing cycling is like they do this is they think they're sprinting for the yellow jersey yeah and there's a million dollar contract waiting for them at the top of onto and so can they come I guess they can compare times like if you did the vault - you could easily compare the times from route and the guys who do well the guy who has won Haute Route like six years in a row is this guy Peter Puglia and when you look on Strava at his times he's literally across the leaderboard number one on basically every single climb in the Alps the Pyrenees and the Dolomites faster than Laurent on Dom faster swear to God and he was he racing two tours got nabbed for doping and then instead of serving his sentence he retired went to Thailand and got sponsored by Thailand to be the ambassador to cycling for Thailand and so Thailand brings him out to these Haute routes every year and they film it as like basically a race for like Thailand to promote cycling in Thailand Ernie trains entirely any trains in Thailand he lives in Thailand when they showed him win it he has his kid there I mean it's like the dude is winning the Tourette's oh yeah and this guy I mean when you look at his times I mean he was putting up two or times up those climbs all right well that's that was my question I mean that's because I can visually I can see you know I know those climbs I can see I can I can roughly see that hey these these boys are not going slow yeah but then the crazy so the objective was to go back in 2015 charged evade the tests and do better and it didn't happen that's right yeah yeah there's a lot of things that didn't happen I mean I had a little crash I didn't show the cost me a few minutes I had a flat on the I had a flat on the first day and and the way the race is set up is a is it's all like neutral support you can't have like your own you know team car because you know it's amateur and they don't want other people have an advantage so I had to wait three minutes for a wheel and then by the time I got the wheel it was the climate started I couldn't get back on and then my di to cable just connected it was like 40 degrees that day and but either way I wasn't gonna win but wouldn't you well let's let's back up a little bit because the the the the as you start to watch the doc and for the listener at home hasn't seen it if this is it's a two-hour documentary roughly the first third is this pursuit right there's a story which was the original story the one that I thought was so damn crazy and then of course this story twisting and then the last two-thirds is now like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in a boxing ring or something and that's a good way to put it it's so so interesting but as you're in LA preparing for are you in Boulder and both Boulder in Los Angeles preparing for a whole route with the drug and with doping you know there was you were like my buddy called me and he was like after he watched it he was like dude was that your life like that is crazy like did you have to do all that and so when I watched it I was like I was even like holy [ __ ] like first of all just from somebody who knows you didn't need to do 75% of that I mean all the all the anabolics all the hcg all that all of that's on this let's see what I never did which I which I was scared to do was to do a blood bag yeah like I never did that and I need to do that either really no because if you had not to get I guess we are gonna get specific but you know you know Ferrari would always tell us all you need is the red cells so that all the power stuff you're strong those cyclists you can you can do certain types of training to increase strength the red cell once you have the red cells and if you have the green light to take EPO which you did clearly that would have been enough but but the images are people watching you like jabbing yourself in the ass and it was bleeding everywhere and I don't know what it was that was in those syringes as most of most of that was vitamins at that point yeah it looked like I was like is that yeah cuz I was takin I was taking testosterone yeah I was taking Ipoh I was taking HCG I was taking thyroid I was taking DHEA and then I was taking like a whole slew of these vitamin injections and most of those in those syringes were most of the vitamins yeah that folic acid that Hertz yeah there's a couple of them really hurt but but they'd have to have for the yeah yeah the falak for the EPO to get the EPO to absorb yeah I I was I was I was shocked like I thought I'd seen some stuff in my day and I was like damn I was committed yeah no you were committed yeah and you got lean like you could see it as the process went through I was like man I mean you must have been down to three or four percent body yeah I was like I weigh a hundred forty pounds I was down to about 129 Wow yeah and so in in in during the the first third they're doing all this testing you're in the lab being tested what I haven't have written down here your watts your watts go from 250 is this this is probably a threshold yeah so 250 watts to 349 watts yeah that is an insane jump yeah I was able to I was able to average basically like 349 Watts up latigo like I could I could sustain 349 for like a client I felt pretty good yeah I mean you must have felt that in whole route like you must when you're there you must have been like I just you know it was everybody else in the field did the same what was interesting is you know you have like in that second year 650 guys right but of those 650 400 of them are really just there just to finish just to be like I finish this thing and then you got about 250 that are there to race it and of those 250 you've got 50 that are good and of those 50 you've got ten that are basically pro level you know they're they're putting out at times that are you know it was like serious and I was kind of like right under those those 10 guys but yeah I mean the biggest thing for me was the recovery that was really what she was it was just the recovery but it just goes to show you and a you know cycling and I've talked about this a lot last summer during stages but cycling is so much more I mean cycling you have to worry about mechanicals you have to worry about crashes you have to worry about tactics you have to worry about politics within the group you have to worry about getting sick I mean these are all things that that you just you to me that's what you know when people talk to me about Icarus they're like oh my god this guy did all this stuff and guess what he did worse yeah and I'm like well it's not because he did that stuff that he did he did worse it's because he had mechanicals he had a crash and he you know once you have those two things then your morale dips so it's it's you know day in day out on the road like you everything has to be perfect and that's why when I look back on my run I was like how did how did nothing ever not happen like yeah the thing that I you know look I I was never in your shoes but I think that for me was the most extraordinary about your victories was knowing the variables in cycling and so to doping not doping to be able to get through seven tours without basically a catastrophe and knowing that that that what is going on along the way that a flat can take you out a crash can take you out I'm missing a break getting in a getting in a cross one I mean there are so many variables and to be able to do that for seven years I look three weeks at a time I mean it's it's it's on a room it's you know everyone's I will say to you and to the listener that it got it's hard to do the first one's hard because you really don't have any respect and you know what this is like even racing locally or Haute Route like if people don't know you they're like who you get out of the way you know so we had to fight for every position in year one and really into year two once you get past that then they like okay we just took over the front and it's just a lot easier when you just you basically occupy or just plant yourself at the front of the group nobody you know nobody tries to take that place away from you it makes life a lot easier so that's the only thing I can I mean that's really the only thing I can point to that that made it possible if we had to fight like we had to fight in year one for all seven years it'd be probably what I mean there would have been a crash there would have been a mechanical it was something yeah yeah it's it's it's amazing because every every second you're in a race like that I mean all that's going through my mind is we're going down you know a descent at 100 kilometers an hour is just one thing yeah and you're over yeah everybody it's taking extraordinary risks it's the thing it's like nobody is is is within their right frame of mind and they're all taking extraordinary risks and so they're like they're all scared yeah and to navigate that and and and then the Haute Route they weren't closing the oncoming lane of traffic on these disasters that's good and there were a couple guys in there they're like 19 20 year old like French national team and these guys were taking these risks and all of a sudden you come around corn there was a car and it was like I'm like this is crazy what am i doing let's talk about Gregory so this this for the listener hasn't seen this this guy you know he's he got you know the part that surprised me about Gregory and and I never knew any of this happened when he started talking about the stair Ward market right worldwide most of these steroids were produced in China at the time were produced in China China gets the games Jacques Rogge who was the head of the IOC at the time told them okay you're gonna get the games but you have to stop manufacturing steroids these steroids and so I got a little lost when I guess another coach or trainer in Russia was manufacturing or sourcing steroids that weren't as pure I mean so here's the here's the as abbreviated story behind that so China gets the games right and they're making and had been selling for years and years pure steroids to Russia and to other countries as well so if it was oxandrolone it was augs and alone it was pure oxandrolone like basically the difference between cocaine and meth right and pure coke right so there getting pure drugs sent to them so so for Russians are on dogs and alone they know that there's nothing else in that eggs and alone and so when you go to test it right there not as long as they know that it's just oxandrolone you aren't going to test positive for other things and they can attest positive for ox Andhra right but they can basically not test for example and they can conceal the oxandrolone but it's just one substance so what happened which are there in Switzerland well this was all coming through the Russian lab in preparation for you know in preparation for the game so they want to just stay right because they weren't going to be tested internationally unless unless they they left the country that makes it a lot clearer I don't assume they were traveling and writing and so what China did is so they start selling essentially to get Russia nabbed they start sending Russia dirty steroids on purpose so the Chinese are sending dirty steroids to Russia and they're coming through this coach Sergey portugalov who's basically the coach of the national team would run the whole program was doping the athletes was overseeing their protocols so portugalov is giving these athletes the steroids that are coming from China thinking that he's giving them aiexander loan but it's oxandrolone and there's a bunch of other stuff in it so then it's coming to gregory's lab and the athletes are testing positive and once it's in using this right and once they're in it's in the atom system once you've registered and everything there's no way for him to conceal what the test is so Gregory goes to portrait olive and goes you're messing us up you're selling the athletes dirty steroids well portugalov was like well what do you want me to do craigory is like you have to throw these drugs and what you can't do it so he didn't portugalov didn't wanna do who's gonna put him out of business so Gregory starts manufacturing steroids on his own and he literally goes to like a lab and Kazakhstan somebody that he knows and he starts basically having the pure steroids manufactured so that the Russian team would not test positive because if they test positive the lab was gonna shut down he was gonna lose his job and he was protecting the national but then portugalov Enix in turn its upset gets up loses his business turns on Gregory and basically reports Gregory to a higher up at the FSB now of course they're all in on it but it's like it's like being pulled over for a speeding ticket and if you pay the cop a hundred bucks in Russia right you walk free so he involves higher-ups at the FSB then then Gregory knows right they start and they come in and that arrest Gregory to basically put portugalov back into business so Gregory thinks that he's gonna go to jail for the rest of his life he's charged with drug trafficking all this kind of stuff but he hadn't really done anything wrong he was protecting the national team and on the eve of the London Olympics Putin gets wind that his mastermind his scientist is basically sitting in a hospital psychiatric hospital ready to go to jail for the next 20 years of his life the case drops he set free and he goes to London and onwards to Sochi and the FSB is a new way to say KGB KGB so I mean most people like I know if you said to me FSB I'd be like is that like a football thing or yeah KGB an FSB or the same thing the same thing same things I don't change but then they being then they become a central part to this story I mean this you guys did a great job animating the way and I'm assuming that's pretty accurate the way the lab was was built you know the floor plan of them oh yeah that was down what we had is we had Gregory had the blueprints the actual blueprints of a lab because he oversaw the lab construction so this plan was in place for years and years and years so as they were designing the lab they were designing how they were going to basically have this secret room where the cameras were going to be placed where they could swap the urine I mean this was all thought out way in advance so Gregory had the blueprints and part of what he provided to our team was blueprints and so when we went to this this company to do the CGI you know they designed it off of blueprints and we kept going back to Gregory and Gregory be like no no no no no it was like this it would go like this and so that that whole sequence in the film is incredibly accurate so fascinating that is the actual blueprint from the line guys gave it to the New York Times and then they came with the story with the blueprint yeah a hole in the mean I was like no way there's no way no way no how this is [ __ ] it's just crazy that that that that maybe it's not crazy I mean if you if you get to go build the lab and you want to you can you can do that I mean I guess you had like we said you had to wait until because it's not just Gregory and all of his co-workers in there you have wada in there you probably have some IOC in there I owe some people to oversee make sure that checks and balances everybody's playing fair so to speak but they stayed up late yeah and then they had created this back portion of the lab the maintenance area of a lab that was outside of the security perimeters that were outside of the cameras and so all the regular lab doings are under cameras and then basically through this security door there are no cameras and they've set up in a back entrance and that back door basically is their way over to the KGB building across from the lab where basically the clean urines are held and they had figured this whole thing out and what was interesting and when you think about Gregory and thinking ahead those photos which were kind of the nail in the coffin that there was this mouse hole that there was a hole in the urine aliquot a room going into basically the room where they would swap out the dirty yearn for the clean urine sorry did that first room have cameras the first room the all aquatic room had cameras in it well I don't see them getting on the ground and handing sticking the vials through the hole that's a good that's a good question I don't know how they I don't know how they had that I don't know how they had that wired maybe there wasn't cameras and in when we Alucard of how they opened the bottles if you can do that then you can figure out one camera in one room yeah I mean they had figured it out somehow maybe there weren't cameras in the aliquot a room various cameras throughout the corridors there's cameras but maybe not in the alley Claudius and get to that because that's sort of the inner sanctum of the lab but it's just so much to take in I'm glad I watched it a second time flying up here today because the first time I literally got to the end I was like okay I don't think I I don't think I understood all that like he's and then between the first mclaren report around rio and then the second mclaren report it is just so much to take in I was I was completely overwhelmed and in in the most impressed way but the thing that you know I've been I'd love to get into just you know because you know my schtick all the time was I passed 500 tests and you know now people look at that and say oh haha you know that was a bunch of BS well the reality is I did pass 500 tests and so later I want to get into just how that's possible but in the process of doing 500 tests I know the process you walk in you give your you you pee in the cup somebody watches you pee you know you can't just go in there alone so they're watching physically watching you staring at you they then take that cup and split it up into an A and a B sample which you guys do a great job of showing how that's done and then then these bottles are sealed with this the the bottles are glass at least I think they're glass but it has this metal ratchet system and when you go and you just as you're doing it you're you're thinking to yourself this is never coming off but of course the labs have a machine that can take it off the fact that they could get the tops off there's something wrong here I mean there's something I don't care if it's the KGB something else was at play well the company designed the bottles this Swiss company bourlingueur that would be my first yeah and the great thing is as you see in the film we have that that commercial that water puts out basically just like about it year ago showing that these bottles are Fort Knox then nobody can get in financial institutions in the world and this is the the protocol that you know - everybody's subscribe - and according to gregory they spent they had decided that they were gonna swap the urine right after the vancouver games which were in 2010 because russia wins ten medals so now the next molds are ten ten total no right so this is a disaster for russia and they're going wait we're hosting the next olympic games there is no way in hell we are gonna go in there and win ten medals this is an embarrassment for the country so they decide that they're gonna swamp the urine and the FSB starts working on how they're going to do this and they went through according to gregory all sorts of different things first they were trying to get the caps manufactured for them so like basically they just bust open the tops and they'd have a matching fraudulent cap with it because all the kids like the bottle in the cap has the code on it exactly have to obviously be that so they were trying to redesign the caps yes then they were trying to isn't that crazy basically a fraudulent cap and and they somehow basically figured out through like a micro toolkit how to essentially put these tools into the bottle and press up and there was just I guess enough clearance that they could open up this bottle undetected and but in so doing and this is how it was proven that they had opened these bottles and swamped it when they went back and looked at these bottles under a microscope yeah they could see the scratches from these tools yeah no did the athletes know were they were the athletes I mean the athletes knew that they were they were doping or did they not know most of them but by and large the Russian athlete according according to Gregory it was one of these systems where changes the story from where we're where everybody it was kind of like the idea of okay everybody kind of knew but nobody knew exactly what was going on because so if you're the athlete and you know you're doping yeah you have to be thinking well I'm gonna be tested so it there either no they're doping no they're gonna get tested and the FSB says don't worry about it we got it covered or they don't know they're doping they're being given however they're being administered vitamins etc whatever they would call it so they think they're clean and in the FSB says we're gonna make sure they're clean you don't seem like it's it's well I would order I would I would say it's a hybrid but in my personal opinion and I think Gregory backed me on this is that the athletes knew they were doping because a year before Sochi all of them had to go off of taking anything and for six weeks they were collecting their clean urine samples so every one of those athletes at Sochi they had six or seven clean urine samples of each one of those athletes to swap and what they would do is in those clean urine samples Gregory had already analyzed the specific gravity basically the way to be urine the salt contact the steroid profile of those urine so when they peed that day he could best match their clean urine with the dirty urine yeah right and then and then and then swap it and adjust right and then adjust the salt content in the urine which was the specific gravity so when they went back and tested these samples they found absorbent levels of salt table salt in the urine because he is using salt to adjust the specific gravity on the which was noted on the doping control forms so I would say that that the majority of the athletes did know because they were collecting their clean urine but the athletes didn't know was how it was being done okay they didn't know was being swapped they didn't know they just knew that they were asked to clean two tepee cleanly that they were off all of their vitam for medications and you know and they were collecting their urine and like things like plastic water bottles and soda cans and and so even when they brought these things to Sochi according to gregory the freezer in the FSB of all the clean neurons was literally like a bunch of plastic water bottle Perrier bottles the Pellegrino was whatever the athletes could pee into and they were all labeled I mean yeah uh yeah I mean something that sophisticated boils down to something that not sophisticated that just does amaze me yeah so we know that they swapped dirty urine for for clean urine or vice versa which got them off the hook but let's just say for example and as I watched the documentary I thought you know you can reverse this too if you had a country you say or you show very clearly what happens at the end of Sochi Putin's popularity before Sochi is - I mean they you guys start winning gold medals and it just it's like a rocket ship took off he has the highest popularity and forever BAM attacks Ukraine alright so his popularity is decreasing then all of a sudden it shoots up and then he attacks Ukraine so obviously he's got a beef with Ukraine I mean would they go so far as to say this Ukrainian or whoever it is this Ukrainians urine is clean but we're gonna make it dirty yes they did that so what had added that that's so what happened in Gregory according to Gregory he said no he was approached on multiple occasions to basically do exactly that they asked him to essentially take a Ukrainian athletes clean sample and make it dirty and he said no so it didn't happen according to Gregory the answer's no I don't have a you know and everything that he has said is certainly proven to be true but apparently when he was asked to do that which he was asked to do he said no I'm not gonna do that because when you when you show when you should realign it's the first thing that came to my mind when you showed most immediately he goes into Ukraine starts a war I'm like he immediately I was like surely they did a reversal here and so I'm glad that well it's interesting that you came up with that because to me the question that that it left me which is always I think the the thing in anti-doping is what we've learned is that just because somebody says they're clean doesn't mean they're clean and then often times if somebody tests test dirty there is this notion of you know you know if you believe alberto contador that he ate tainted meat or there's this notion of there's always a defense so when somebody tests dirty you're telling me yeah and then of course and then of course what we've come to learn is that you know clean doesn't mean you're clean and what and what stuck out to me about the whole urine swapping thing aside from the russian athletes is it called into question bull has this been done before who else might have done this how do we how do we know that that that even if anybody's at the sample is dirty that now we have the potential that it could have been swapped or that somebody's clean sample could have been swapped for a dirty one it's it's you know that's sophisticated it can be even easier right if you where does the Ukrainian team stay for the Sochi games they stay in a hotel and Sochi that's the employees are Russian and the FSB is standing outside they're eating the restaurants food they don't they can't control everything they drink everything that you eat it would be so easy to contaminate just their food and then you don't have to worry about swapping I mean it is that you don't even need to contaminate it so that they test positive you could contaminate it so that they get sick you could guarantee that they either have a poor performance or they lose their result I mean that's that's much easier now I mean the the possibilities are limitless that we were always well that's why we eventually started cooking our you know trying to control as much as we could control by all of our own food cook all of our own food water drinks etc just to prevent you know outside contamination [Music]

Channel: WEDŪ

Views: 117,130

Keywords:

Id: G0JDDdPp8-0

Length: 43min 59sec (2639 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2018