Informants of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanova will address the Olympism in Action forum that will be held in Argentina on Friday and Saturday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Tuesday in a statement.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd October, 2018) Informants of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanova will address the Olympism in Action forum that will be held in Argentina on Friday and Saturday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Tuesday in a statement.
The forum will be held ahead of the 2018 Youth Olympic Games with more than 1,600 people set to take part.
According to the IOC statement, Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanova are in the list of participants of the forum.
"The Olympism in Action Forum is one of the results of Olympic Agenda 2020 where we said we want to open our windows and doors. We want to listen to society and to understand how the world sees us, rather than us telling the world how they should see us. Following the Forum, we will assess all of the contributions, learn from them and implement a number of hopefully innovative ideas," IOC President Thomas Bach said, as quoted by the statement.
Former Russian runner Stepanova and her husband, former employee of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), disclosed information about alleged doping abuse and corruption in Russian sports in the German television broadcaster ARD's film titled "The Doping Secret: How Russia Creates Champions," released in late 2014. Stepanova, who had left Russia with her family, was also a key witness in the WADA investigation into allegations that dozens of Russian athletes used performance-enhancing drugs at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
In 2015, WADA declared RUSADA non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code. In 2016, the head of WADA's independent commission Richard McLaren published a report that claimed Russia had a state-supported doping system. Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have refuted allegations of the existence of a state-run doping program but admitted there were issues with doping abuse.
Last month, most members of the WADA Executive Committee voted to reinstate RUSADA saying the Russian organization fulfilled all the set criteria.
