6 Yulia & Vitaly Stepanov

WADA

ICRpt1p49-51 The narrative was structured around the use of secretly recorded videos and audio recordings made by Russian whistleblowers, Vitaly Stepanov and Yuliya (née
Rusanova) Stepanova. Vitaly Stepanov previously served as a Russian Doping Control Officer (DCO) with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) and his wife Yuliya
Stepanova 6 is a high performance Russian 800-meter athletics athlete. Ms. Stepanova identified Russian athletes who were utilizing illegal performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) to excel in athletic competition. She described how Russian coaches provided her with prohibited drugs for the purposes of accelerating her athletic performance. She accused the head of the ARAF’s medical department, Dr. Sergey Portugalov, of supplying banned doping products to her and to other athletes, in exchange for a payment of five percent of the athlete’s earnings. Ms. Stepanova also claimed that Russian athletes had avoided out-of-competition testing by using false names during training sessions in foreign training camps, in Portugal, for example. Ms. Stepanova supported her accusations through secretly recorded meetings and telephone conversations with Russian athletes, coaches, Dr. Portugalov and DCOs.

Critique

http://orientalreview.org/2016/07/21/the-olympics-as-a-tool-of-the-new-cold-war/   Stepanova’s career went off the rails in 2013, when the Russian Athletic Federation’s Anti-Doping Commission disqualified her for two years based on “blood fluctuations in her Athlete Biological Passport.” Such fluctuations are considered evidence of doping.  All of Stepanova’s results since 2011 have been invalidated.  In addition, she had to return the prize money she had won running in professional races in 2011-2012.  Stepanova, who had been suspended for doping, acted as the primary informant for ARD journalist Hajo Seppelt, who had begun filming a documentary about misconduct in Russian sports.  After the release of ARD’s first documentary in December 2014, Stepanova left Russia along with her husband and son.   Stepanova’s blood tests went positive starting in 2011 – i.e., from the time that her husband, an anti-doping officer, left RUSADA. With a clear conscience, the Stepanovs, now married, accepted prize money from professional races until Yulia was disqualified.  Then they no longer had a source of income and the prize money suddenly had to be returned, at which point Vitaly Stepanov sought recourse in foreign journalists, offering to tell them the “truth about Russian sports.”

Mark: It is not proof; it’s all supposition, and relies at least 80% on the Stepanovs and Rodchenkov. McLaren Report, in which he and his pals on the ‘Independent Commission’ more or less acted as stenographers for Yulia and Valery Stepanov (who were paid $30,000.00 by WADA as a ‘fleeing fee’) and Grigory Rodchenkov, the central figure in Russian sports doping who is very likely parlaying it into a state-sponsored program to save himself. Grigory Rodchenkov, who previously referred to the members of the ‘Independent Commission’ as “three fools who do not understand how the Moscow lab works”.  WADA likes to pretend that the ARD documentary by Germany was the triggering event which started their investigation. But that’s only peripherally true, because WADA actually introduced the Stepanovs to the documentary filmmaker, and helped them relocate (flee) to Germany and then onward to the United States. Vitaly Stepanov was feeding them information for years, and they already knew everything that was in the documentary. They just needed something to promote outrage and a rush to judgment.