Yuliya Igorevna Stepanova (née Rusanova; ; born 3 July 1986) is a Russian runner who specializes in the 800 metres track event. Stepanova was also an informant for WADA about Russia's large-scale doping program. She and her husband, Vitaly Stepanov, exposed widespread doping in Russia. Career Stepanova, then known as Yuliya Rusanova, started having testosterone injections at the suggestion of her coach, Vladimir Mokhnev, and later took anabolic steroids. Stepanova's athletic results began to improve rapidly and she was offered a place on the Russian national team. In 2011 she won 3rd place in the 800 m race at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Paris and 2nd place in the 800 m race at the Russian Championships in Cheboksary the same year. All her results since March 2011 was stripped, because of abnormalities in her biological passport, which were found in 2013. She was banned for two years. She said in a 2016 interview, "I knew it was banned but I think my coach prepared me well because he was telling me stories about how it's normal, that's what all athletes do." On 26 February 2013, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) announced that Rusanova had been banned for two years following abnormalities in her biological passport. All of her results from 3 March 2011 were forfeited. Stepanova and her husband Vitaliy Stepanov, a former Chief Specialist of the Education Department of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), wrote letters to the World Anti-Doping Agency describing doping in Russia but received little response. Deciding she needed more evidence, she began secretly recording conversations between leading Russian sports officials, trainers, doctors and athletes about the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs. In 2014, the couple appeared in a documentary by Hajo Seppelt for the German TV network Das Erste, accusing the Russian sports system of large-scale doping fraud. Both said that Russian athletics officials supplied banned substances in exchange for 5% of an athlete's earnings and falsified tests together with doping control officers. The revelations led to an investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Russia was subsequently accused of running a state-sponsored doping program. A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin called Stepanova a "Judas". The Russian media have attacked her character and her mother received criticism at work for raising an "unpatriotic" daughter. Although the IAAF decided not to lift the ban on Russian athletes before the 2016 Summer Olympics,