WADA says Russian hackers published athletes’ medical data

Russian hackers have leaked confidential medical files of star US Olympic athletes, including Simone Biles, the 2016 US Olympic star gymnast who has Belizean roots.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Farah and a spokesman for the athlete said he did not have any current or ongoing TUE.

The group said the attack was carried out by a Russian group calling themselves “Fancy Beats”, who accused Wada of being “corrupt and deceitful”.

WADA’s director general Olivier Niggli confirmed the hackers had accessed the system via an International Olympic Committee account after conducting an email phishing scam.

The hack on WADA’s computer system, Niggli said, constituted “retaliation” against the agency, which imposed heavy penalties against Russian Federation over doping, including banning practically its entire athletics team from the Rio Olympics.

“We can say without a hesitation any involvement in such actions on the part of official Moscow, the Russian government or any Russian secret services is strictly out of the question”, Peskov told reporters.

The hacking group, known as “Fancy Bear” by USA cyber-security researchers, was also blamed Tuesday by WADA for posting data about U.S. athletes Simone Biles, Elena Delle Donne, and Serena and Venus Williams.

They have already released data relating to five Team GB members, including Tour de France winners Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins, with 53 of the 366-strong Olympic squad having been issued with a TUE at some point in their careers.

“We don’t support what hackers have been doing, but their findings can not but be of interest to the global public, sports public first and foremost”, he said during a sporting conference on 16 September, according to the TASS news agency.

Williams, who won a silver medal in mixed doubles at the Rio Olympics last month, issued a statement via her agent saying she was granted TUEs “when serious medical conditions have occurred”, and those exemptions were “reviewed by an anonymous, independent group of doctors, and approved for legitimate medical reasons”. Through their website and Twitter account, the hacker group has leaked the personal data of 29 worldwide athletes including Yuliya Stepanova, Serena and Venus Williams, Simone Biles and Chris Froome.

Gold medal-winning sailor Saskia Clark has revealed she is one of the British Olympians whose medical records may have been accessed by the “Fancy Bears” group.

If the hackers were hoping to smear Biles’s image, they failed.

WADA believes the attacks are being carried out in retaliation for the agency’s investigations that exposed state-sponsored sports doping in Russian Federation.

The organization has asked Russian Federation “to do everything in their power to make it stop”, he said.

In an interview Thursday, WADA President Craig Reedie said he asked the agency’s finance department to provide details of its IT spending over the last five years, and particularly a breakdown for the amount spent on its main Administration and Management System database.

“Continued cyberattacks emanating from Russia seriously undermine the work that is being carried out to rebuild a compliant anti-doping program in Russia”, Niggli also warned.

A spokesperson for Wiggins said: “There’s nothing new here”.