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Is Putin Flying Too Close to the Sun?

 


    There was not a specific scene that got to me; however, there is something I found alarming.  The fact that athletes were doping, in general, doesn't surprise me (I feel like athletes get caught for that all the time), but the fact that 100% of the Russian athletes in the 2014 Olympics (in Russia) were doping, and the fact that this doping of the athletes was led by Putin (well, it came down the chain of command, but the people leading the program were essentially hired by Putin), did really get to me.  It just left me dumbfounded, and I'm not sure why; I don't think there's really anyway else for me to describe how or why this blew my mind, but it did.

    What most surprised me was the extreme lengths the Russians went to in order to get their athletes to be able to dope during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi and pass the drug tests.  Like, the containers being used to hold the urine were specifically made so that in order to open them, the lids had to be broken off; the head Moscow WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) scientist (Grigory) didn't even know how the KGB got the tubes open, but they did open them without breaking, and they were able to swap the dirty urine (urine with drugs in it) with clean urine (urine without drugs in it).  This also just completely dumbfounded me; I just couldn't imagine the leader of a country, who already probably has enough on his plate, spending time on finding ways to get his Olympic athletes to dope and pass drug tests for the Olympics.

    I don't really have any questions left after watching the documentary, but I do think it would be really cool to have knowledge and be able to apply it in real life situations.  Like, Grigory went to school for this, and got a job almost right out of college, then he went to jail and Putin rescued him from jail because he had a job for him (the doping and anti-doping position in Moscow's WADA lab), and he knew what he was doing so well to the point where he was able to help athletes dope until a certain point before competition, to remain undetected, and then gave them stuff to take in order to mask the fact that some drugs might still be in their system. Like, I love religions so much, and I love learning about them, but I can't find a way to apply that to what I want to do!  it just baffles me.

    We should avoid putting research in our summaries for multiple reasons.  One of these reasons is that we could end up with information in our brains that wasn't shown in the documentary.  Another reason for not including research in the summary could be because it is then easier to include unnecessary information; oftentimes in a summary, the writer wants to be a bit broader and not go into so much detail. These are just a few reasons to not include outside research in a summary.

Here is a link to the movie on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/search?q=icarus&jbv=80168079    

Comments

  1. Casey Aikman11:49 PM

    I remember watching Icarus with my dad a couple years ago, and feeling the same way about it. I've known for a long time that Russians athletes are more likely to use PEDs than others, but I didn't know that it was provided by the state before watching Icarus. In the US, there are definitely some groups trying to get athletes doped without detection, but I'm fairly certain that there is no one in the state system doing it. PEDs are basically state-sanctioned in Russia. In the US, we have USADA, which is a pretty thorough organization that drug tests all highly competitive athletes. I can't imagine a group like USADA actively doping athletes while using its name as a cover up, like Russia did.

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  2. Andy Pham3:50 PM

    I found that it was extremely surprising that 100% of Russian athletes were doping in the 2014 Olympics. One reason I thought Putin ordered the command is to glorify and make it look like Russia is the best country in the world, like doing it for political propaganda.

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