When we first meet Grigory Rodchenkov in the Netflix documentary Icarus, which debuts to wide release today, it’s via a Skype call—and the respected head of the World Anti Doping Agency-accredited Moscow drug testing laboratory is shirtless and somewhat disheveled as he listens to filmmaker and cyclist Bryan Fogel lay out an audacious plan. (If you haven't already seen it, you can catch the trailer here.)

Fogel wants to make a film documenting his scheme to dope and race the arduous Mavic Haute Route, all while evading any positive tests, as a means to expose the fallibility of the very testing regime of which Rodchenkov is a vital part. Will Rodchenkov help him, asks Fogel? Rodchenkov asks a few questions, nods at the answers, and then readily agrees, matter-of-factly laying out what Fogel should do to accomplish his goal.

(Spoiler alert: If you haven't watched Icarus yet, we recommend you catch the movie on Netflix first and come back to read this interview.)

We then meet an anti-aging doctor who freely prescribes the healthy, relatively young Fogel with drugs like growth hormone and testosterone. And we see Fogel himself taking the drugs (along with EPO) and dramatically improving his performance on the bike. In one test, we learn he’s improved from 250 watts at threshold to almost 350—at Fogel’s relatively light weight and domestic pro level of fitness. (EPO works, people.)

RELATED: That EPO Study You’re Reading May Not Tell The Full Story

But the moral questions involved in Fogel’s personal quest quickly fall to the wayside as the story takes a startling turn with Rodchenkov’s moral ambivalence as foreshadowing: Rodchenkov is not merely helping Fogel evade doping tests. He’s at the heart of a massive program, sponsored and condoned by the highest levels of the Russian state, helping elite Russian athletes win medals through doping. As the story deepens, Fogel finds himself at the center of one of the most massive doping conspiracies ever unveiled, rivaled only by the East German program detailed in Steven Ungerleider’s book, Faust’s Gold.

Watch how the UCI uses these intense iPads to scan for motor doping:

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In an interview with Bicycling, Fogel said when he realized the size and scale of what he’d stumbled on, he was taken aback. “There was a huge sense of responsibility and burden because I understood what this was and how fragile this story was,” he says. “And I was essentially in the middle of it.”

Icarus is a dark and troubling movie in many respects. As details of the Russian doping program begin to go public, Rodchenkov is forced to resign his job at the Moscow lab and warns Fogel during one of their many Skype calls that he is under surveillance. Ultimately, Fogel helps Rodchenkov flee Russia to the US with hard drives of evidence, leaving his family behind. Fogel says he took cues from movies like the Iran hostage thriller Argo. “I wanted to make this essentially feel like a thriller,” he says. “That’s what we lived through.” In one tense scene, Fogel waits anxiously at the international arrivals terminal at LAX, not knowing if Rodchenkov was even allowed to board his flight from Moscow.

The scene points out a central criticism of WADA: that 16 years after its founding, the organization has seemingly become more concerned with self-preservation than its core mission of eradicating doping.

What leavens the movie is Rodchenkov and his familial relationship with Fogel. The Russian scientist is morally flawed and, admits Fogel, bears responsibility for his significant role in the doping scandal. After all, Rodchenkov both helped devise a potent drug regimen for Soviet athletes and then also worked for years to falsify test results, including from Russian cyclists. The program culminated in the elaborate and sophisticated scheme at the Sochi Olympics, where the Russians swapped dirty samples for clean ones at the lab in the dead of night, and which Rodchenkov claims taints at least half of Russia’s 33-medal haul at the Games. But he’s also a charming rogue. He loves Fogel’s dog, Max. Scenes from Fogel’s visit to Russia include Fogel at a family party, posing for photos like one of Grigory’s own children.

And that’s by design. Amazingly, Icarus is only Fogel’s second film credit, after a cinema adaptation of a stage comedy he wrote and directed called Jewtopia. But he’s an apt student of both suspense and character development. “What I learned from (Jewtopia) was that if you could make an audience laugh, they’d invest in the character and stick around for the emotional journey,” he says.

So as Rodchenkov makes his startling journey from Fogel’s raffish co-conspirator to cornerstone of the Russian doping program to key whistleblower (along with Vitaly and Yulia Stepanov, who are not in the movie), we care. Rodchenkov nervously examines the apartment Fogel secures for him in LA, and later tells Fogel about two mysterious men (who turn out to be FBI agents) who come to visit him. His voice cracks as he talks with his worried wife back in Russia.

Fogel describes Russia’s Sochi scheme simply but with rich detail, using clever animations showing how FSB intelligence agents switched dirty A samples for clean ones through a hidden access hole in the on-site lab, and managed to open the supposedly tamper-proof sample bottles. B samples were left undisturbed; with clean A samples, they would never be tested.

But the scene where Icarus comes together is, oddly, a bloodless conference room, where Fogel lays out the case for senior officials from WADA to finally investigate the Russians before the 2016 Rio Olympics. (WADA had rebuffed previous calls for investigation, even by its own member organizations.)

RELATED: Russian Athletic Team Loses Doping Ban Appeal, Out of Rio Olympics

Fogel outlines the scheme and Rodchenkov’s considerable evidence, including original documents with B-sample test numbers from the Sochi Olympics and corresponding spreadsheets with athletes matched to those numbers. “If you re-test these samples,” says Fogel, “they will come back positive.”

The camera pans around the room, alighting on shocked faces like Olivier Niggli, WADA Director General, and Beckie Scott, a former Canadian Olympian and member of WADA’s Athletes Commission, who looks about ready to throw up. Christiane Ayotte, director of the Montreal anti-doping lab, is furious. She asks Fogel, rhetorically, if this news is supposed to please her; WADA staff oversaw and certified the Sochi lab’s testing, she says. Why should WADA believe Rodchenkov’s tale? Fogel’s response cuts Ayotte’s argument off at the knees. Rodchenkov fled Russia, leaving behind his family—who we learn are being harassed by Russian media and officials, their passports seized—and is in mortal danger, so that he could tell this story, says Fogel. (Two of Rodchenkov's colleagues will turn up dead, in suspicious circumstances.) All WADA need do is follow the evidence, which will back up his tale.

RELATED: The Most Memorable Doping Excuses in Cycling

In the film and our interview, Fogel carefully and clearly points out that WADA does the right thing: the so-called McLaren investigation that resulted was “handled with integrity and credibility,” and the results were publicized. But the scene points out a central criticism of WADA: that 16 years after its founding, the organization has seemingly become more concerned with self-preservation than its core mission of eradicating doping. Presented with overwhelming evidence of a systemic, years-long doping program, Ayotte’s first, raw response is anger—not that clean athletes have been cheated, but that her and WADA’s reputation might be harmed.

Icarus is the metaphor for all those who push the boundaries too far. In that sense, it’s a warning of sorts to those who would try to fly too close to the sun.

Icarus ends on an ambiguous note. Rodchenkov is under federal witness protection (and Fogel says he has not spoken with him since). And while WADA and many of its national satellites voiced solid support to ban Russia entirely from the Rio Olympics and this winter’s Games in Pyeongchang, the International Olympic Committee effectively punted the issue to its member federations, which ultimately let almost 300 Russian athletes compete in Rio. (You can improve your own fitness the natural way with Bicycling's Maximum Overload for Cyclists training plan.)

Fogel is unsparing: “The IOC essentially turned its back on its own credo and ideals and everything they put forward to every clean athlete in the world,” he says. When I ask him if we can trust the performances that we see, Fogel hedges.

Anti-doping is still hugely fallible, he says. The science of the tests is good, but there are so many variables involved in even good anti-doping that it’s hard to prove fault. That’s to say nothing of the iceberg that Icarus hints is below the surface: Is Russia the only place where anti-doping rules are flouted? Signs from track and field, such as top African coach Jama Aden’s arrest in Spain, where he was reportedly found in possession of EPO, aren’t encouraging.

Fogel doesn’t realistically imagine that elite sport will change soon; there’s too much money involved. But he hopes that the movie does send a message that whistleblowers can and do make a difference. (Two key team members of Icarus helped found Fair Sport, a non-profit that provides support to whistleblowers).

In a sense, says Fogel, the movie’s title speaks to hope rather than despair. “When I came up with (Icarus), my metaphor was Lance,” he says. “To this day, he didn’t get caught based on testing but because of his arrogance, because he sued people, because of bad ethical behavior.” But Armstrong is just an example; Icarus is the metaphor for all those who push the boundaries too far. In that sense, it’s a warning of sorts to those who would try to fly too close to the sun. “Eventually,” says Fogel, “they plummet to earth.”

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Joe Lindsey

Joe Lindsey is a longtime freelance journalist who writes about sports and outdoors, health and fitness, and science and tech, especially where the three elements in that Venn diagram overlap.