Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanov are an extraordinary couple. He is the anti-doping zealot working for the Russia anti-doping agency, she the elite 800m athlete and part of the system he is trying to destroy. They meet, fall in love, get married and set off on a journey too crazy to plan.
Put yourselves in their shoes around the middle of November 2014. By this point, things are getting a little stressful. They’ve been secretly collaborating with a German television station so that the story of systemic cheating in Russia sport will be shown to the world. They’ve told their stories, passed on confidential documents, secretly filmed and recorded national coaches and fellow athletes.
By the time the documentary is broadcast, they will be away from Russia. Before they leave there is one more recording they need. Mariya Savinova. She is the Olympic 800m champion, the poster girl for Russian athletics. Savinova is also a friend of Vitaly and especially Yuliya. They’ve always liked her. But they’re disillusioned with Russia’s doping and don’t see how they can expose one athlete and not another. Yuliya calls Mariya, concocts a story about a row with Vitaly and her fear he might leave Russia, taking their son Robert with him.
Savinova invites Yuliya round to her apartment in Moscow. They speak for a few hours. Stepanov records every word and the 800m champion implicates herself in doping. Soon the Stepanovs are making their way through Sheremetyevo International airport en route to Prague, the secret recordings stored in Yuliya’s iPhone.
The documentary was broadcast, the world awoke to the dark side of Russian sport and right-minded people thanked the Stepanovs for what they had done. If the story had then proceeded as it should, the whistleblowers would have been embraced and feted, held up an example of good triumphing over bad.
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Alas, this is the world of sport. Where Sir Craig Reedie, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), writes to Natalie Zhelanova at the Russian Ministry of Sports and asks her to tell her boss, the sports minister Vitaly Mutko, that he [Reedie] didn’t want the doping controversy to harm their excellent personal relationship.
Did the head of Wada write to the Stepanovs and offer his gratitude for the job they had done in exposing what Wada’s own independent commission called Russia’s “state-supported doping?” No, he didn’t. Has he been in touch by telephone, or set up a meeting? No and no. The knighthood for Craig Reedie? Let’s just say it wasn’t awarded for his work in anti-doping. The Stepanovs have had to get accustomed to their new life — hated in Russia, unloved and unsupported by the international federation whose sport they tried to drag from the pit. They received a short letter from Seb Coe shortly before the IAAF president would show up at the launch of the second part of the independent commission’s report in Munich.
This is the way of the official sports world; every federation says it wants whistleblowers but when they come along the pious words turn out to be garbage. Where the Stepanovs and their young son now live in hiding, you could pay a month’s rent for one night’s rest in the Monte Carlo hotel where IAAF members will be holed up this week.
The whistleblowers know they have been shabbily treated. How could they not? In their new life their only means of earning a living is Yuliya’s ability to run fast. Since leaving Russia she has never stopped training and has held onto the belief that she will again compete in major championships. And this week the IAAF will consider whether to make a special case of Yuliya Stepanova. The proposal is that she be allowed to race under an IAAF or an IOC flag and compete in the European championships and Olympic Games this summer. After all, her contribution to reducing the number of cheats in athletics has been unprecedented and her ineligibility to compete internationally is solely down to the evidence she collected against her home country.
The IAAF knows Russia well enough to understand it will never forgive Stepanova. She doesn’t have a country now. Unless the IAAF helps her she will never again compete internationally.
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In an interview with The Guardian, the British middle-distance athlete Jenny Meadows spoke about Yuliya. “For some reason I have always felt she was different,” she wrote. “When we raced she would always smile and be friendly. But in Daegu [for the 2013 world championships] I noticed a very different look on her face when she beat me into third. We were going back into the village, she was really remorseful and told me, ‘I am really sorry you didn’t make the final’.
“There was something behind those eyes. I don’t forgive any other Russians but I do forgive her. We wouldn’t know what was going on in Russia without Yuliya and her husband. Every athlete should be really grateful to them.”
There are good people on the IAAF council, officials who are not corrupt and who care about clean sport. This week they need to make their voices heard. Yuliya Stepanov deserves to compete again but that’s almost secondary. What matters more is telling every athlete that cheats will be punished and whistleblowers will be helped.
Boot danger into touch
The debate about rugby and children has been interesting and worrying for those who love the game. How else can one feel when 70 experts put their names to a letter that says people under the age of 18 should not be playing contact rugby? Whatever the merits of the argument, the concern is obviously genuine.
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Anyone who has read the recently published book Concussion or seen the film of the same name will know that collision sports, especially boxing and American football, have been seriously damaging brains for a long time. Bennet Omalu, whose work as a forensic pathologist inspired the book, argues children in the US should not be allowed to engage in collision sports until they reach the age of consent.
Rugby’s authorities have turned a slightly disdainful ear to the call for children to play touch rather than tackle. They point to the game’s character building qualities and the benefits of physical activity for a society becoming less active by the day. Our authorities also like us to believe that they take head injuries very seriously and are doing everything within their power to make the game ever safer. Sadly, they are not.
There is an example on YouTube, Mike Brown’s reckless use of his boot causing a head wound to Conor Murray in last weekend’s England against Ireland game at Twickenham in the RBS Six Nations championship. According to the rules, Brown was entitled to kick the ball even though it was in Murray’s arms and the scrum-half was lying at the bottom of a ruck. Brown kicked backwards, forwards, every which way and the wonder was that more damage wasn’t done. In rugby the authorities speak about each player’s duty of care towards his opponent. Too often it’s an empty phrase.
Willet on rise
They call his golf course The Blue Monster and you could call him The Comb-over Monster: Doral and Donald Trump. He’s on a swashbuckling run through the Republican Party primaries while at the golf course he owns the best players in the world are fighting for a £1.12m first prize.
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Doral favours golf’s biggest hitters, the Republican race favours big mouths, but let’s stick to the golf.
The leaderboard is full of quality and conventional wisdom will deem it a surprise if the tournament is not won by Adam Scott, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson or Phil Mickelson. Familiar names, you’re thinking, but the devil is in the detail of that leaderboard.
An emerging English player, Danny Willett, is right up there in the mix too. He’s already risen to No 14 in the world and real wisdom tells you that victory for Willett, a gritty player from Sheffield, against the game’s greats wouldn’t actually be much of a shock.