The Russian 800m runner Yuliya Stepanova, who bravely and spectacularly blew the whistle on widespread doping inside her country, could return to international competition as early as next week’s European Championships after being granted special dispensation to race again as an independent neutral athlete.

Russia’s track and field stars have been banned from international competition since last November – and most are also set to miss the Olympics after the IAAF, the governing body of athletics, ruled that their athletes would also be excluded from competing in Rio unless they could “clearly and convincingly” show they were not tainted by the Russian system.

However the IAAF’s doping review board said Stepanova’s application to compete again had been approved because of her “truly exceptional contribution to the protection and promotion of clean athletes, fair play and the integrity and authenticity of the sport.” Stepanova, 29, is free to compete immediately and intends to run in the Olympics in Rio next month.

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The Guardian has learned that Stepanova – who last month was called a “Judas” by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for having betrayed the country – is in discussions with European Athletics’ officials and will almost certainly compete in the European Championships that begin in Amsterdam next Wednesday under a European flag.

A European Athletics spokesman told the Guardian: “The wheels are in motion, and everything points to Yuliya Stepanova being there. We expect her to do a press conference with our president Svein Arne Hansen on Monday before racing in the 800m heats on Wednesday.”

The IAAF also confirmed that it had received more than 80 applications from Russian athletes who believe they should be allowed to compete internationally again under the organisation’s Competition Rule 22.1A(b). That rule states they would be allowed back in time for the Olympics if they can prove they are not corrupted by being inside the Russian system.

In a statement the IAAF said these athletes would have to show they were “not tainted by the Russian Athletics Federation’s failure to put in place adequate anti-doping systems because they have been subject to other, fully adequate systems outside of the country for a sufficiently long period to provide a substantial assurance of integrity.”

The statement added: “The form of these further applications is being checked against the guidelines issued by the IAAF and, if they are in the correct form, they too will be referred to the Doping Review Board for a decision on exceptional eligibility.”

The Russian athletes have until Monday to apply to the IAAF for an exemption – and they will learn their fate by 18 July, when the Olympic entry lists are finalised before the Games begin on 5 August.

Stepanova, along with her husband Vitaly Stepanov, who was a former employee of Russia’s anti-doping agency, were the two key whistleblowers in a German documentary exposing doping amongst Russia’s track athletes in November 2014.

In the documentary Stepanova, who was banned for anomalies in her athlete biological passport in 2013, claimed that she was told by her coaches to keep “clean” urine samples in a freezer for tests during training and secretly recorded her coach handing her pills said to be Oxandrolone, a banned anabolic steroid.

“The coaches chose a girl, fed her pills and then she’d be off,” Stepanova said. “And the next day she’d be banned and then they’d say: ‘We’ll find a new one.’”

Her husband said the Russian anti-doping agency regularly received calls from the ministry, asking to reveal the identity of athletes who had tested positive. “If it was an unknown athlete, the test remained positive,” he said, “but when it is someone famous, or someone young and a medal hopeful, then it’s a mistake, and it’s not reported.”

The Russia Athletics president, Dmitry Shlyaktin, said it treated the decision “neutrally”. He told Tass. “The decision on the issue was taken back at the meeting in Vienna. The ARAF treats this decision absolutely neutrally,” he said.

Earlier the president of Russia’s Olympic Committee, Alexander Zhukov, claimed any decision to let Stepanova participate in the 2016 Olympics would be a mockery of common sense and ‘clean’ Russian athletes.