David Walsh - The Russian Affair: From Russia with Drugs

Foreword

On Wednesday 7 January 2015, I travelled to Berlin to meet Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanov for the first time. The investigative journalist Hajo Seppelt had been the go-between for our meeting. When the four of us gathered at a small cafe, Vitaly and I began a conversation that has rumbled on for five years. One question has dominated all others: why? Why would a lowly doping control officer working for Rusada, the Russian AntiDoping Agency, turn spy? Especially as his wife was an elite athlete and part of the system?

Seppelt had made a fine documentary, Top Secret Doping How Russia Makes Its Winners , for German state television, which had broadcast it five weeks earlier. In the opening credits Vitaly and Yuliya are seen strolling through a Moscow park with their one-year-old son, Robert. They are lit by sunshine, the trees are leafy green, life seems idyllic. Then Vitaly and Seppelt are shown sitting at a table in an empty restaurant. Vitaly explains what motivated him to join Russias anti-doping agency.

I wanted to fight doping and I wanted to make sports cleaner. More honest. Better. I truly believed that I came to work for an anti-doping organisation who will fight doping. And I was not married back then, I was single. I was ready to work twentyfour hours a day.

Something about this quiet, matter-of-fact expression of idealism struck me as odd. What was it about this guy? Doping was a well-funded, state-supported service for Russias athletes, viewed as a means of enhancing the global reputation of Mother Russia. The conspiracy involved every sports organisation in the country, every government agency and, of course, the Ministry of Sport. How could one small cog in the midst of so many interlocking and free-moving wheels think he could make any difference?

If you think that you are too small to make a difference, ask a mosquito.

After joining Rusada, Vitaly remained single for not much more than a year. His relationship with Yuliya would be complex. He was a dreamer. She was a tough pragmatist. They married each other anyway. The anti-doping zealot and the committed doper. How could that work? Vitalys devotion to anti-doping was intriguing, but his marriage was perplexing.

Now here they were in Berlin. At the end of one journey, and at the beginning of another. The only certainty was that the second part of their lives would be nothing like the first. In the blink of an eye, their home in Moscow had become their past. Theyd had to get out before Seppelt told the world that Russia was the biggest cheat in sport. Six weeks into their exile, they knew they would not be able to go back.

Financially, whats your situation?

Not good.

How will you survive?

If we can find a country that will take us, we will work.

You could earn some money if you wrote a book.

Would you help us to do that?

And so began The Russian Affair .

PART ONE

You will not grasp her with your mind

Or cover with a common label,

For Russia is one of a kind

Believe in her, if you are able.

Fyodor Tyutchev,

Russian poet, 180373

Prologue

Monday afternoon 3 August 2009, offices of Rusada, the Russian anti-doping agency, close to Moscows Kiyevsky station. Conversation between Vitaly Stepanov and Director Vyacheslav Sinev

Director Sinev, do you have a moment?

Vitaly, for you I have several moments.

I was out on a date last night.

A date! On a Sunday? Well, that is allowed, Vitaly! Life isnt about Outreach alone. Will this be happening again?

Well, I need to talk to you about something that happened.

On your date?

Yes.

Of course. Just not too much information so soon after my lunch, please, Vitaly.

She was an athlete.

But this morning she has retired, right?

No. She is still an athlete, but she told me certain things.

Oh, okay.

I thought you might need to hear them.

Do proceed, Vitaly, but bear in mind that myself and Mrs Sinev are already people of the world. We arent easily shocked.

She told me that she is doping.

I see. That was refreshingly frank.

And that everybody she knows is also doping. She said that the coaches dont regard doping as cheating. She said they think that Rusada is just there to help them.

Hmm. Well, she sounds like an interesting girl.

I just thought I should tell you.

Yes. Of course, Vitaly. Of course. Thank you for the information. Quite a first date. My advice to you is dont get too involved with the girl. Two words, my friend: be careful.

Chapter 1

Several days earlier

Vitaly smiled. Things were going well.

At his desk in Moscow he sorted through the data from the Outreach trip in Cheboksary. Athletes had filled out questionnaires and Vitaly had inputted their responses and contact details into his database. The answers werent convincing, and it had taken the lure of free gifts to get athletes to engage, but what Vitaly had now was better than nothing.

How odd , he thought as he came across three forms from the same runner. He soon realised this was not an outlier in terms of enthusiasm; a different gift had been claimed each time. Very odd. Hed given her one himself but the other two had been handed over by his colleague Alexey. What the... ? Aha, it was that blonde 800 metres runner, the blue-eyed one with the techno-buns hairstyle. Cheeky! And Alexey, you dog, what were you thinking? Vitaly grinned. She looked like a bit of an operator, this young woman.

It was true that Yuliya Rusanova had turned up at the Outreach not to learn anything about doping but to get as many gifts as she could. If she remembered Vitaly Stepanov at all, it was because her friend Oksana Khaleeva had been trying to match her up with him.

My friend here, shes not attached. Shes a good girl.

No, no, no, said the good girl, conveying the impression that her dance card was full, thank you.

Pity , Vitaly had thought to himself at the time. But maybe there was no need to abandon all hope after all. He called up the social network site Odnoklassniki and sent Ms Techno-Buns some photos taken at the stand, making a little joke out of her three-gift heist.

Yuliya Rusanova from Kursk. There was something about her.

She responded with a bare-bones thank you, but it came back quickly enough to encourage him. Or rather not to discourage him, so he sent another message.

The conversation was flirty, at least when he was typing. If Kursk hadnt been more than 300 miles away he would have asked her straight out for a date. She threw him a crumb, though, letting it slip that she was catching a flight to a competition on the following Monday morning and that she would be spending the night before with a relative who lived near the airport at Domodedovo.

Maybe I could give you a call, Vitaly said.

Maybe, she replied, as if all things were possible but of equal insignificance to her.

The following weekend he was again on Outreach duty, this time at the World Junior Canoe and Kayak Championships in Krylatskoye, Moscow. Vitaly loved his work but he was distracted. By Sunday afternoon he was keen to wrap up and see if he could catch up with this runner from Kursk. He called her mid-afternoon, suggesting they meet up at around seven oclock. She agreed in a way that again made her indifference plain. He settled for that.

First, though, Vitaly would have to drive his colleague Oleg Samsonov back to his apartment in the centre of Moscow. That meant driving all the way into the city before coming back out. Doable.

Around five oclock she called him: Look, Im sorry but I am not feeling well, and Ive got an early flight tomorrow. Can we just cancel?