The World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed it had been hacked and blamed Fancy Bears, a Russian state-sponsored cyber espionage team that is also known as APT 28 – the very same group that may have recently breached the Democratic National Committee.
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Fancy Bears, however, indicated it planned to release more information.
An International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokeswoman said the leaked information was “clearly aimed at tarnishing the reputation of clean athletes” while reiterating that no anti-doping violation had occurred. Allow us to introduce ourselves.
Stepanova, who is living in hiding in the U.S., later said she feared for her life following the hack. “We stand for fair play and clean sport”.
“We will start with the USA team which has disgraced its name by tainted victories”, the group said, adding that more revelations about other teams were forthcoming. The group said that Biles “was approved for a therapeutic-use exemption” of certain drugs and “has not broken any drug-testing regulations, including at the Olympic Games in Rio”.
“Having ADHD, and taking medicine for it is nothing to be ashamed of nothing that I’m afraid to let people know”, she wrote.
That list includes the US Gymnastics body, who have just released a statement on Twitter in support of Biles.
“I was disappointed to learn today that my private, medical data has been compromised by hackers and published without my permission”, Williams said. “I’d like to thank the hackers for making the world aware that I legally take a prescription for a condition I’ve been diagnosed with, which WADA granted me an exemption for”.
USADA CEO Travis Tygart said the athletes are being wrongly smeared.
Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying any possible Russian government or secret service participation in the hacking was out of the question.
ITF president David Haggerty said all TUEs handed out to tennis players were done so in accordance with WADA rules.
This is not the first time WADA was targeted.
In a statement posted to its website early Tuesday, the group proclaimed its allegiance to Anonymous, the loose-knit movement of online mischief-makers, and said it hacked WADA to show the world “how Olympic medals are won”. The runner helped expose the scale of Russian doping problems past year.
Wada said in a statement that the cyber attacks were an attempt to undermine the global anti-doping system.
WADA is not popular in Russian Federation.
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“The IOC can confirm, however, that the athletes mentioned did not violate any anti-doping rules during the Olympic Games Rio 2016”, the group said in a statement. Russian officials and athletes likened the move to Cold War era conflicts.
