She set a personal best throw of 65.78 metres when she won the silver medal at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, but that throw was to be subsequently discredited. She was selected to represent Russia at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, but on 31 July, she was suspended from competition due to doping test irregularities, along with several other high-profile Russian female athletes.[1] On 20 October 2008, it was announced that Pishchalnikova was one of seven Russian athletes receiving a two-year doping ban for manipulating drug samples.[2]
Pishchalnikova participated in the 2012 Olympics and was awarded a silver medal. However, she tested positive for the anabolic steroid oxandrolone in the samples taken in May 2012. In April 2013 she was banned by the Russian Athletics Federation for ten years, and her results from May 2012 were annulled, meaning she was set on track to lose her Olympic medal.[5] According to the New York Times, she was a whistleblower who sent the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) a December 2012 email detailing state-run doping programs in which Russian athletes had to participate; her ban by the Russian Athletics Federation was likely in retaliation.[6]
