A group calling itself “Fancy Bears” has claimed responsibility for the hack of a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) database.
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On Tuesday, the hackers published a list of Therapeutic Use Exemptions for Great Britain’s Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins, victor of four Tours de France between them.
“We condemn this criminal activity and have asked the Russian Government to do everything in their power to make it stop”, WADA said.
German discus thrower Robert Harting, the 2012 Olympic champion, wrote on Twitter that We dont hide anything. go transparency!.
“I’ve openly discussed my TUEs with the media and have no issues with the leak which confirms my statements”, the 31-year-old said.
He said that it is necessary to create a new structure with absolute openness and subject all anti-doping requirements to unified standards.
Wiggins was approved to take the medication for asthma.
The files, stolen from the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), relate to therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs), which allow banned substances to be used for medical reasons.
None of the athletes named has broken any rules, and several of the medical exemptions detailed were already known. Numerous substances identified are commonly used to treat pain or allergies.
Froome had two TUE’s for corticosteroid prednisolone before the 2013 Critérium du Dauphiné and the 2014 Tour de Romandie, the latter raising some eyebrows.
Wiggins was given exemption to take a medication for an allergy to grass pollen, while Froome is known to have previously required medication for exacerbated asthma.
On Sept. 13 WADA confirmed that a group of Russian hackers had accessed confidential medical records of athletes who participated in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
In a statement, WADA said: “The targeted athletes include 10 from the United States, five from Germany, five from Great Britain, one from the Czech Republic, one from Denmark, one from Poland, one from Romania, and one from Russian Federation”.
“There is a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that cyclists are using corticosteroids in training”, he said.
The statement on behalf of Wiggins said the leak was an attempt to undermine the credibility of WADA and thats something for them to deal with..
“WADA has no doubt that 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 Russia”, Niggli said.
Putin said, “We don’t support what the hackers have been doing, but what they have done can’t fail to attract public attention internationally”. “You blame Russian Federation for everything”, Mutko said. It is very in now..
The TUE leaks follow an earlier cyber attack from Russia that tried to find the whereabouts of Russian doping whistle-blower Yuliya Stepanova and her family, who are now living in hiding in the US.
“We strongly condemn such methods which clearly aim at tarnishing the reputation of clean athletes”.
Four Olympic champions from Rio 2016 were among 11 high-profile stars from Great Britain, Spain, Denmark, Australia and Germany targeted today by the hacking group Fancy Bears’.
READING Olympic rower Sam Townsend is among five British athletes whose medical records with the World Anti-Doping Agency have been leaked by computer hackers overnight.
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The group has proclaimed its allegiance to Anonymous, the loose-knit movement of online mischief-makers, and says it hacked WADA to show the world “how Olympic medals are won”. “Stay tuned for new leaks”.
