IOC chief says WADA hacking 'outrageous'

Thomas Bach

PARIS: An unacceptable breach of medical confidentiality was how International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach described the recent string of leaks by the Russian cyber-espionage group Tsar Team, also known as Fancy Bears.
The hacking group released information on sports stars including US Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, a four-time gold medalist in the Rio Games, and tennis champions Venus and Serena Williams.
In their most recent release on Thursday, the group published confidential data of 25 athletes including British Tour de France-winning cyclists Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome.
Bach, the German IOC leader, defended the athletes concerned and said his organisation gave the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) their full support.
"This is an unacceptable and outrageous breach of medical confidentiality that attempts to smear innocent athletes who have not committed any doping offence," Bach said.
"The IOC fully support the actions taken by WADA to deal with the leak, including the measures that are being taken to bring this activity to an end with the help of IT experts and in requesting assistance from the Russian authorities," Bach said in an IOC statement.
"I have informed the WADA President, Sir Craig Reedie, that the IOC will also assist WADA in any way required, including communicating with the Russian authorities."

‘Lots of questions’

President Vladimir Putin said Friday that WADA leaked in a hack blamed on Russian cyberspies had raised "lots of questions" about medical exemptions that allow athletes to take banned substances.
"We do not support what the hackers do, but what they did cannot but be of interest to the international community, and most of all to the sports community," Putin said at a regional leaders summit in Central Asian Kyrgyzstan, Russian news agencies reported.
"It raises lots of questions."
WADA said in a statement earlier this week that the Russian cyber-espionage group Tsar Team (APT28), also known as Fancy Bears, had broken into its Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS).
Putin slammed the fact that "healthy athletes" had been allowed to take forbidden medication while Russia's Paralympians had been excluded from the Rio Paralympics "under suspicion of having taken some kind of drugs".
Russia is still smarting after its track and field athletes were banned from the Olympics and its entire Paralympics team turfed out of their Games over evidence of state-sponsored doping.
WADA called the hack "retaliation" after it released reports detailing the cheating and called on Russia to help stop the hacking of its computer systems.
The Kremlin reacted promptly by saying it was ready to help while denying Russian involvement in the hack.