Stepanova, then known as Yuliya Rusanova, started having testosterone injections at the suggestion of her coach, Vladimir Mokhnev, and later took anabolic steroids.

"[3] 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.

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.

[3][6] 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.

[13] Its taskforce recommended that Stepanova be allowed to compete due to her "truly exceptional contribution to the fight against doping in sport" including "great personal risks".

[11] WADA's former chief investigator, Jack Robertson, praised Stepanova for giving information without asking for a reduction of her sentence, to which she was entitled as a whistleblower.

[22] Later the same year, she was chosen as one of BBC's 100 Women[23] and Germany's Doping-Opfer-Hilfe (Doping Victims Assistance) awarded her its 2016 Anti-Doping Prize.

She was on a panel alongside Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Administration, Jim Walden, the attorney for Russian Whistle-blower Grigory Rodchenkov, and Katie Uhlaender, a four-time Olympian competitor in skeleton.