Stepanovs & The Need For Speed In The Mental Agility & Sensibility Of The USCIS
The slow process of the couple’s asylum cases has prompted Travis Tygart, CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), to write a letter to the USCIS urging the government office to process the Stepanovs' application for asylum as soon as possible
Whistleblowers Yuliya and Vitaly Stepanov, a former member of the Russian national track and field team and a former employee of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), who exposed the Russian state doping scandal and fled to the US in 2015 via Germany, are still waiting for asylum in the US.
The slow process of the couple’s asylum cases has prompted Travis Tygart, CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), to write a letter to the USCIS urging the government office to process the Stepanovs' application for asylum as soon as possible.
A reminder: the information brought by the Stepanovs in the Russian doping crisis of the past decade has been critical not only too exposing the truth but dealing with it in a way that serves to protect athletes in and beyond the Kremlin's tight grip on sport in a nation in thrall to a criminal regime.
In an analysis of the situation at The Inquisitor, Jens Weinreich writes: Olympic sport has obviously become so important in the US that even the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) takes credit for paving the way to the Paris Olympics for several new US citizens at Team USA.
On social media, the USCIS proudly highlights that judo fighter Maria Laborde from Cuba, fencer Margherita Guzzi Vincenti from Italy, and badminton player Beiwen Zhang from China have become US citizens and are now representing US at the 2024 Games.
But in its zeal to grant US citizenship to Olympic sports heroes from many different nations, the USCIS has apparently forgotten to expedite the asylum cases of two of the greatest Olympic heroes.
Read Tygart's appeal to U.S. authorities and a tale of seven years of uncertainty for whistleblowers who exposed one of the biggest doping scandals in history as parti of events that led to Russia being unrecognised in Olympic competition since 2016.
Lars Jørgensen
