The Rodchenkov Affair

The Rodchenkov Affair

How I Brought Down Russia’s Secret Doping Empire – Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2020

Summary

***Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, 2020 - the inside story of the Russian doping programme by the man behind it all***

One of the Financial Times's 'Fifty people who shaped the decade'

'The biggest sports scandal the world has ever seen'

In 2015, Russia's Anti-Doping Centre was suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) following revelations of an elaborate state-sponsored doping programme at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Involving a nearly undetectable steroid delivery system known as 'Duchesse cocktail', tampering and switching of urine samples, and a complex state-sanctioned cover-up, the programme was masterminded by Grigory Rodchenkov.

The Rodchenkov Affair tells the full, unadulterated story that was first glimpsed in Bryan Fogel's award-winning documentary and still continues to captivate and shock the world. Charting the author's childhood growing up under the Iron Curtain, his first encounter with doping as a 22-year-old student athlete at Moscow State University, and his subsequent career working for the Soviet Olympic Committee, this breathtakingly candid journey reveals a rigged system of flawed individuals, brazen deceit and impossible moral choices.

Reviews

  • An extraordinary account of a decade-long quest by the USSR and then Russia to win by any means
    Mail on Sunday

About the author

Grigory Rodchenkov

Dr Grigory Rodchenkov is the former director of Russia's national anti-doping laboratory, which was suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in 2015 for facilitating Russia's elaborate state-sponsored doping program. He helped develop and distribute banned performance enhancing substances for thousands of Russian sports stars from 2005 to 2015. He made headlines in 2016 as a whistleblower, exposing the extensive nature of Russia's doping program, leading to Russia's 2016 & 2018 Olympics bans. Rodchenkov is currently in witness protection in the US.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more