The hacker group overlooked the fact that the agency had approved the use of certain medications by the famous athletes for medical reasons.
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Olympic gold medallists Robert Harting and Michelle Carter are among a list of 29 sportsmen and women to have had private medical data leaked by a hacking group calling itself “Fancy Bears” after a second data dump was carried out on Wednesday night.
“We do not support what the hackers do, but what they did can not but be of interest to the worldwide community, and most of all to the sports community”, he added.
The hackers responsible for leaking confidential medical data stolen from the computers of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) have released a fresh trove of information that includes drug exemption records of four British athletes.
He said in a statement: “I’ve openly discussed my TUEs with the media and have no issues with the leak which confirms my statements”.
Even though initially it appeared as if the hackers were targeting U.S. athletes only, that no longer seems to be the case as the new release includes files on several British Olympians too. “Everyone knows Brad suffers from asthma; his medical treatment is BC (British Cycling) and UCI (International Cycling Union) approved”.
Like prior records, the leak consists of therapeutic-use exemptions (TUEs) which are routinely provided to athletes suffering from genuine conditions and are carefully regulated by officials. Numerous substances identified are commonly used to treat pain or allergies.
Meanwhile, three-time Tour de France victor Froome has TUEs for prednisolone, a steroid that can be used for chest complaints.
The UCI TUEs for Wiggins, the 2012 Tour de France victor and a five-time Olympic gold medalist (including gold in Rio), showed he had a “life long allergy to pollen nasal congestion/rhinorrhoea sneezing throat irritation, wheezing leading to dyspnoea eye watering runny nose known allergy to grass pollen”.
WADA considers the attacks are being carried out as retaliation for the agency’s investigations that exposed state-sponsored doping in Russian Federation and led to virtually the entire track and field team being banned from last month’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Ukad says it has “a number of robust controls in place to make it as hard as possible” for athletes to misuse the system.
Danish swimmer Pernille Blume, who won gold in Rio de Janeiro in the 50-meter freestyle, had done nothing wrong, Ask told Denmark TV2 channel. “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 in a statement.
Russian hackers have released confidential information about dozens more Olympic athletes, the World Anti-Doping Agency says.
“This is an unacceptable and outrageous breach of medical confidentiality that attempts to smear innocent athletes who have not committed any doping offence”, IOC President Thomas Bach said on Friday.
“Given this intelligence and advice, WADA has no doubt these ongoing attacks are being carried out in retaliation against the agency, and the global anti-doping system, because of our independent (Dick) Pound and (Richard) McLaren investigations that exposed state-sponsored doping in Russian Federation”.
Russia Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko brushed aside suggestions of an orchestrated hacking campaign. “It is very “in” now”.
But the fear of having personal data leaked has already had some national anti-doping agencies react.
A month ago, a similar WADA break-in led to Russian hackers accessing the location of middle-distance runner Yuliya Stepanova.
Richard Ings, the former Australian Anti-Doping Agency chief agrees with Dmitri on their nationality.
He added that it was hard for him to comment on the list of athletes, because it was related to the Olympic Games held by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and it should be dealt with by the IOC and WADA. WADA confirmed the first hack Tuesday, but did not verify the veracity of the medical records themselves.
“We’ll keep on telling the world about doping in elite sports”, the group said Thursday. “Stay tuned for new leaks”.
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