Russian Whistleblowers Speak At Sports Governance Lecture Series
February 21, 2017 | General, Sports Governance, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — Former Russian athlete Yuliya Stepanova and her husband, Vitaly Stepanov — called by some the most important whistleblowers in the history of anti-doping — were surprise speakers Tuesday night at the University of Colorado's Sports Governance Center's Distinguished Lecture series.
The two appeared with scheduled speaker Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, in the Petry and Harrington Family Auditorium at the CU Champions Center before a full house.
Tygart's topic, "Foxes In the Henhouse: From the Russian Doping Scandal to Global Anti-Doping Reform" tied directly to his special guests.
Stepanova, a standout track athlete, and her husband, a former employee of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, provided the key testimony and evidence in a 2015 World Anti-Doping Agency investigation into the Russian Olympic doping program that ultimately resulted in roughly one third of the Russian Olympic team being banned from competing in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. The report accused Russia of a vast, systematic doping program that was state sponsored, with later reports from news agencies suggesting the program reached as high as the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Tygart called the Stepanovs "the most important whistleblowers on the global scale of fair play the world has ever known."
The two gathered their information in 2013 and 2014, when Yuliya Stepanova began secretly recording her conversations with Russian athletic officials, including coaches, other athletes, trainers and doctors. They then took that information to a German filmmaker, who produced a documentary that brought the Russian doping system to light in 2014 and finally convinced WADA to begin its in-depth investigation.
The couple moved to Germany for their safety, but when her athlete information was hacked and their location revealed, they moved to the United States.
Stepanova has begun competing again as a "neutral" athlete, and has talked on the record a few times about their ordeal. The two also appeared in a 2016 edition of CBS' "60 Minutes," but their appearance Tuesday night is believed to be one of their first public appearances together since they fled their home country after being branded as "traitors" by Russian officials.
Stepanova, who was banned from competition in 2013 following abnormalities in her biological passport, said she decided to blow the whistle on the Russian program when she realized what a corrupt system it was.
"I decided I can either return to the system and do it again, or I could stay with my husband and do the right thing," she said.
Stepanova said when she began competing at the highest level in Russia, her coaches convinced her to begin doping. They told her that it was a "standard operation" and that everyone in the world was doing it.
"I believed my coaches," she said. "I believed in the system because I didn't know there was another way."
It was only after she began to compete on an international basis that she realized that all other athletes from other countries weren't doping — and after her positive test and ban, she and her husband decided to do their best to help uncover what has been called possibly the most widespread doping program in the history of sport.
Stepanov — who was never a part of the RUSADA cover-ups — said when he suggested improvements in the agency's operation to his superiors, he was told, "We decide who are the heroes and who will get caught."
Now, the two are not welcome in their native country and are despised by many of their former cohorts — particularly those athletes who were banned from competing in Rio.
"We made the decision as a family," Stepanov said. "And after we made it, there are no regrets."
The CU Sports Governance Center, headed by Prof. Roger Pielke, is in its second year of existence. The only academic program in America to be housed in a university athletic department, its mission is to conduct leading research, education and outreach related to the governance of sport. The Center is multi-disciplinary, problem-oriented and seeks to perform work with real world impacts.