The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said on Tuesday that the attack was carried out by a “Russian cyber espionage group” called Fancy Bears, and it was conducted “illegally”, but Russia denied on Tuesday any involvement in the recent hacker attacks on its database.
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Leaving aside the distasteful fact that the first three targets of the hackers’ attack and subsequent abuse were black female athletes, the online vitriol against Biles shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the conditions and treatments for ADHD.
Instead, the disclosed files set out instances where the athletes had been granted exemptions to use various medications for legitimate reasons – a common practice in the sports world.
However, Tygart, chief executive officer of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) hit out at what he described as an attempt to “smear” clean athletes.
“In each of the situations, the athlete has done everything right in adhering to the global rules for obtaining permission to use a needed medication”, he said.
“The cyber-bullying of innocent athletes being engaged in by these hackers is cowardly and despicable”.
“Having ADHD, and taking medicine for it is nothing to be ashamed of nothing that I’m afraid to let people know”, she wrote.
Venus Williams meanwhile expressed “disappointment” at the breach, stating: “I am one of the strongest supporters of maintaining the highest level of integrity in competitive sport”.
Basketball star Elena Delle Donne thanked the hackers via Twitter. The Russian government was behind the move, WADA claimed. “Thanks, guys!” she posted.
The release of the documents has been applauded in Russian Federation considering that the medical data is evidence enough of widespread drug use among United States athletes.
Hackers also broke into the file of the whistleblower that informed on the Russian program, athlete Yuliya Stepanova.
Wada said in a statement that the cyber attacks were an attempt to undermine the global anti-doping system.
WADA’s database was accessed through an account created by the International Olympic Committee for the Rio games, WADA said.
“I don’t know (where they are from), I don’t have this information”.
This culminated this year in the decision by the International Olympic Committee to ban nearly the entire Russian athletics team, weightlifting team and various other athletes from Rio, while stopping short of a blanket ban.
“The IOC can confirm however that the athletes mentioned did not violate any anti-doping rules during the Olympic Games Rio 2016”, the Olympic body said.
According to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the hack has been confirmed. The hackers dubbed the dump as “just the tip of the iceberg”.
WADA said it was taking the current situation “very seriously” and was carrying out both internal and external security checks as well as working with law enforcement authorities in a bid to protect ADAMS users.
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Haniya Said Saggar was driven away to an unknown location after officers stormed her house.
