:00:00. > :00:00.age of 86. Now on BBC News, the story of Yulia
:00:00. > :00:00.Stepanova, the Russian athlete who exposed the state-sponsored doping
:00:00. > :00:37.scandal in Life On The Run. Yulia Stepanova, Russian champion,
:00:38. > :00:44.world-class athlete turned whistle-blower. Her contribution to
:00:45. > :00:50.sport and the fight against doping is beyond comparison. Nobody has
:00:51. > :01:04.done more for the anti-doping movement. Branded a traitor in her
:01:05. > :01:09.motherland. She and her husband exposed cheating in Russia on a
:01:10. > :01:11.colossal scale. Now they live in secret, fearing for their lives.
:01:12. > :02:29.Unlikely to ever return home. The young family seem completely at
:02:30. > :02:34.home in this average American claim. No one gives them a second glance.
:02:35. > :02:42.This is Yulia Stepanova and Vitaly Stepanov, Amberley athlete and an
:02:43. > :02:45.anti-doping officer. -- and elite athlete. Their shocking revelations
:02:46. > :02:53.exposed the dirty secrets of Russian athletics. Three damning reports
:02:54. > :03:00.commissioned by the world anti-doping agency. Much of them
:03:01. > :03:06.based on the testimony of this couple. It found that many athletes
:03:07. > :03:14.have taken illegal drugs between 2011 and 2015. Four years sports
:03:15. > :03:20.competitions have been hijacked by the Russians. Coaches and athletes
:03:21. > :03:25.have been playing on an uneven field. Sports fans and spectators
:03:26. > :03:36.have been deceived. It is time that stops. This yes, stops. For Russia
:03:37. > :03:42.there was humiliation and a ban on hundreds of athletes from the view
:03:43. > :03:47.Olympics. But President Vladimir Putin remains defiant. He believes
:03:48. > :03:48.his sports men and women happen victims of double standards and
:03:49. > :04:20.political interference. I travelled to the US to meet them,
:04:21. > :04:26.I can see exactly where. They have spent the last two years staying
:04:27. > :04:30.under the radar. -- I can see. Why did they take such extraordinary
:04:31. > :04:37.risks that force them to lead a life on the run? Thousands of miles from
:04:38. > :05:24.home, they may never return to Russia.
:05:25. > :05:32.Yulia Stepanova was brought up on the edge of an industrial estate in
:05:33. > :05:38.western Russia. To begin with, she did not have time for running. In
:05:39. > :06:09.fact, she did not have much time for the childhood at all.
:06:10. > :06:15.This couple worked in a tyre factory and when they were not on the
:06:16. > :06:16.production line they were busy tending to their allotment to feed
:06:17. > :06:41.the family. But when she was 13, Yulia Stepanova
:06:42. > :07:18.defied her father in came here. Athletics became her escape. She
:07:19. > :07:23.began to excel at the hundred metres, winning regions all over --
:07:24. > :07:27.winning races all over the region. But then she got a chest infection
:07:28. > :07:32.and spent three months in hospital. Getting back on form was going to be
:07:33. > :07:39.a problem. Her coach, however, had a solution. The Gloucester Road. The
:07:40. > :07:40.banned drug helped her cut a remarkable three seconds of her
:07:41. > :08:08.personal best -- to trust a run. In the Russian sports system there
:08:09. > :08:13.is very little space for personality or individuality. It is like the
:08:14. > :08:21.Army. Very soon Russian coaches start to use performance enhancing
:08:22. > :08:27.drugs. If you want to survive in sport you need to be inside the
:08:28. > :08:31.system. There are very few opportunities to go up in Russian
:08:32. > :08:40.sports and not to be inside the system. In many ways, Russian
:08:41. > :08:45.athletes are part of the system. Once she was on the national team,
:08:46. > :09:17.she was sent to see a sports scientist who knew about doping.
:09:18. > :09:25.Then a chance encounter changed everything. At him race meeting, she
:09:26. > :09:32.met Vitaly Stepanov, one person in the system who was not prepared to
:09:33. > :09:40.turn a blind eye. He was an idealistic young officer at Russia's
:09:41. > :09:42.anti-doping agency, but he got the inside track on his very first date
:09:43. > :10:08.with Yulia Stepanova. When I met Yulia Stepanova and had
:10:09. > :10:12.an honest conversation with her I understood that I was an idiot. We
:10:13. > :10:19.were not there to fix it we were there to follow the goal of Russian
:10:20. > :10:30.sports, which is to win medals. The Russian anti-doping agency was part
:10:31. > :10:36.of that. A dirty athlete and a crusader for a clean sport, it was
:10:37. > :10:40.unlikely combination. But two months later they got married. Somehow they
:10:41. > :10:47.stuck together despite frequent rows about Yulia Stepanova's doping. He
:10:48. > :10:52.believes in clean sport and is totally committed to it. He sees
:10:53. > :10:57.corruption and he is told that is how it is and you're not want to
:10:58. > :11:03.change it. He realises that he is probably not, but he faces a choice,
:11:04. > :11:09.do I confront this and try to expose it or do I just go with the tide. He
:11:10. > :11:16.decided to confront it, to swim against the tide. So Vitaly Stepanov
:11:17. > :11:23.wrote to the Russian anti-doping agency about the culture. You cannot
:11:24. > :11:29.make a mistake in the 800 metres, it is fatal. It is the fastest tactical
:11:30. > :11:36.race in the programme. Meanwhile his doping wife went from strength to
:11:37. > :11:39.strength. At the World Championships in South Korea, Yulia Stepanova
:11:40. > :11:46.competed alongside some of the finest runners in the sport. But her
:11:47. > :11:55.performance arose suspicions. I thought she would not be a threat at
:11:56. > :12:00.all. I led the hallway in the semifinal and just at the end I got
:12:01. > :12:05.taken over by two girls, one of whom was Yulia Stepanova. It is the
:12:06. > :12:07.Russian showing better form here... I was very shocked to see her in
:12:08. > :12:24.front of me. She may have done enough. We will
:12:25. > :12:29.see how the semifinals pan out... After the event she looked very
:12:30. > :12:34.guilty. I said to my husband that I thought she was cheating, I think
:12:35. > :12:38.she looks very sorry for me. From that moment on she almost could not
:12:39. > :12:50.look me in the eyes. Eventually, the authorities called
:12:51. > :12:55.top. The international athletics Federation gave her a two-year
:12:56. > :13:38.suspension. After irregularities were detected in her blood samples.
:13:39. > :13:44.She joined Vitaly Stepanov by writing to the world anti-doping
:13:45. > :14:00.agency, but her ten page confession was ignored. She needed more proof.
:14:01. > :14:09.She began secretly taping officials and fellow athletes on her mobile
:14:10. > :14:16.phone. We cannot play the audio from this footage because of ongoing
:14:17. > :14:19.legal appeals. Here the notorious Doctor boasts how his drugs have
:14:20. > :14:54.turbo-charged her performance. After the recording was it on German
:14:55. > :14:57.TV, there was finally action. The agency said it did not have the
:14:58. > :15:02.legal powers to investigate the allegations before this point. Since
:15:03. > :15:11.then they have commissioned the report sent to Russian doping. --
:15:12. > :15:15.the reports. For those security the couple left their homeland and now
:15:16. > :15:22.live in the US, leading a hand to mouth existence. For safety reasons
:15:23. > :15:29.we agreed that we would not film in their place, they are worried about
:15:30. > :15:35.their security. I can tell you that it is in a local housing block in a
:15:36. > :16:14.not very nice part of town, it is very basic.
:16:15. > :16:26.Training alone is far from ideal for an athlete athlete 's -- and elite
:16:27. > :16:32.athlete. She had hoped to compete under the mutual flag at the Rio
:16:33. > :16:38.Olympics, but the IOC refused because of her doping past. World
:16:39. > :16:44.sporting agencies have been lukewarm in their responses. Some people
:16:45. > :16:48.would prefer that we do not exist and that we did not share what we
:16:49. > :16:54.know. There are corrupt people in those organisations and their goals
:16:55. > :17:02.are not to promote Olympic values, they are all is to steal money. The
:17:03. > :17:06.classic sports structure and system does not want whistle-blowers coming
:17:07. > :17:13.for word because it brings bad news about sport, and that is contrary to
:17:14. > :17:21.what they want and it ultimately hurts the brand. In Russia, the
:17:22. > :17:27.whistle-blower got a cold reception. The Kremlin called her a Judas and
:17:28. > :17:36.the press attacked as a money grabbing traitor. Online, some even
:17:37. > :17:40.called for her execution. Russian history is full of stories of
:17:41. > :17:46.betrayal. There is a famous one about a schoolboy who informed on
:17:47. > :17:52.his own barber to Josef Stalin's police. Some are calling Yulia
:17:53. > :17:53.Stepanova a modern-day example, selling out her fellow athletes and
:17:54. > :18:09.her country. Reactions have been a mess of anger,
:18:10. > :18:44.disbelief and denial. The couple said they doping
:18:45. > :18:52.programme was approved at the very top. This is backed up by lab tests,
:18:53. > :19:27.forensic reports, and interviews with other insiders.
:19:28. > :19:33.Despite denials of state involvement, this official
:19:34. > :19:40.laboratory covered up and destroyed hundreds of samples. It lost its
:19:41. > :19:46.accreditation and has been out of action for more than one year. This
:19:47. > :19:51.Moscow lawyer represents several athletes accused of doping. His
:19:52. > :19:59.clients dismiss the evidence and call Yulia Stepanova cheating
:20:00. > :20:06.hypocrite. She is not a hero because there is nothing brave in it. The
:20:07. > :20:09.main motive for her is the a must for any other athlete who is
:20:10. > :20:15.involved in doping, it is a financial motive. But a journalist
:20:16. > :20:20.who has been investigating doping for decades, and exposed Lance
:20:21. > :20:22.Armstrong, police people have misunderstood and undervalued
:20:23. > :20:29.hurdles in Russia and in the wider world. Yulia Stepanova that this in
:20:30. > :20:37.return for nothing except agree. -- did this. Some people have said that
:20:38. > :20:43.she is a dope, but those people are showing a lack of empathy for where
:20:44. > :20:47.she has come from and what she has done. If they bothered to look
:20:48. > :20:52.closely at her story they would have nothing but unqualified admiration
:20:53. > :20:56.for her. Nobody has done more for the anti-doping movement, no one
:20:57. > :21:13.comes within 1 million miles. It is an acknowledgement to get your
:21:14. > :21:18.teeth. President Putin says his revamped anti-doping programme will
:21:19. > :21:23.be in place early in 2017. The parliament has passed a new law they
:21:24. > :21:33.could send drug pushing coaches to jail. Many officers have been sacked
:21:34. > :21:38.and other reforms promised. And yet the peer who forced the nation to
:21:39. > :21:46.confront this deep-rooted corruption are still seen as enemies of the
:21:47. > :21:53.state. They betrayed the Russian doping system and I am completely
:21:54. > :21:55.fine with that. -- we betrayed. Yulia Stepanova hopes to compete in
:21:56. > :22:04.the World Championships in London next summer. I have never been in
:22:05. > :22:09.New York and I have never... In a country she does not know, with a
:22:10. > :22:15.language she does not speak, her life has been turned upside down.
:22:16. > :22:20.But she has few regrets about the turbulence she has brought to world
:22:21. > :22:21.athletics. She has exposed an ugly truth that has gone on spoken for
:22:22. > :22:47.years. No matter what her detractors say,
:22:48. > :22:49.Yulia Stepanova will surely be known as one of the greatest
:22:50. > :22:53.whistle-blowers in the history of sport.