“Through regular security monitoring of ADAMS, the agency noted that someone, other than Ms Stepanova, had accessed her account”, the agency said in a statement.
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Wada, which had been alerted that its website had been hacked, found the 800m runner’s account had been accessed by someone other than the athlete.
In 2014, Stepanova – a middle distance runner – fled Russian Federation and blew the whistle on its mass state-sponsored doping practice.
In December 2014, Russian 800 meters runner Yulia Stepanova and her husband fell in media limelight after a series of German documentaries, aired in December, on doping abuse in Russian sports.
She had attempted to compete in Rio as a neutral athlete but was denied by the International Olympic Committee, who had ruled that no Russian athlete with a history of doping could take part.
Athletes are required to enter their location details in their WADA accounts along with a fixed time in which they can be tested for doping each day in out-of-competition routine tests.
Journalists from multiple worldwide media outlets received an unsigned email early Saturday morning from a private Switzerland-based group that has been supporting Stepanova and her husband Vitaly Stepanov with a fundraising effort also endorsed by several past and current prominent Olympic athletes.
“We are very anxious about our safety because we have a small child”.
The IOC considered a ban of all Russian athletes from the Rio Olympics based on the state-sponsored doping allegations, but decided against it, leaving the final decisions with the worldwide sports federations. Stepanova served a two-year ban and admitted to being part of the Russian system for longer than that as part of the evidence she provided. “We decided it was safer to relocate”. “We are very anxious about our safety because we have a small child”. A spokesperson for WADA said it learned of the attempted breach “this week”.
The country has a team of 278 athletes competing here. “But we have made plans with certain people that if something should happen to us for them to take care of our son”.
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“Watching the Olympic Games and reading the news about what is happening there, on some level I’m glad that I didn’t go”, she said.
