The BBC reports that the online hacker group which refers to itself as Fancy Bear released the medical data of a number of elite U.S. athletes including tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams and Rio Olympics sensation, Simone Biles.
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A hack of the World Anti-Doping Agency has drawn attention to the commonly prescribed medications that are prohibited for use during the Olympics without a medical waiver.
Ever the role model, 19-year-old Biles took to social media yesterday to clear up any confusion about her medication: “I have ADHD and I have taken medicine for it since I was a kid”, she tweeted.
The second trove of names includes Bethanie Lynn Mattek-Sands, an American professional tennis player who has won three Grand Slam titles in women’s doubles and two in mixed doubles, and Dagmara Wozniak, an American sabre fencer who represented the U.S. at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
“There is also a further complication in that we understand that the people involved in hacking have connections in Russia, which isn’t particularly helpful when we are now involved in trying to make the Russian anti-doping system compliant with the World Anti-Doping code”.
The leaked information revealed records of Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs), which allow athletes to use otherwise-banned substances because of a verified medical need.
Wada said it is reaching out to the national anti-doping organisations and global federations whose athletes are impacted by the latest data release to provide support.
Another athlete named was women’s basketball gold medalist Elena Delle Donne, who had thumb surgery on Tuesday andposted a post-op pic on Twitter, along with a statement saying she takes prescribed medication approved by WADA.
There is no suggestion the athletes are involved in any wrongdoing.
Access to ADAMS was obtained through spear phishing – phishing attempts aimed at specific targets – of email accounts, enabling access to the databases.
“These criminal acts are greatly compromising the effort by the global antidoping community to re-establish trust in Russia”, WADA’s director general, Olivier Niggli told The New York Times.
And with the future of Wada now in the balance, the fact its security was so badly compromised will raise more questions over the entire anti-doping system, especially after the account of Russian whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova was hacked last month, leading to fears for her safety. The runner helped expose the scale of Russian doping problems previous year.
“The IOC confirms that the athletes listed have violated anti-doping rule during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games”, said to AFP an IOC spokesman. Russian officials and athletes likened the move to Cold War era conflicts.
“We are reaching out to stakeholders, such as the International Olympic Committee, International Sports Federations (Ifs) and national anti-doping organisations (NADOs), regarding the specific athletes impacted”, he continued.
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A separate anti-doping commission report released last November that was headed by former Wada president Dick Pound, alleged widespread corruption and collusion that added up to a state-sponsored drugs culture in Russian athletics.
