British riders Wiggins, Froome named in latest Russian hackers’ medical leak

Five British sports personalities were among 25 athletes whose confidential antidoping medical certificates were leaked in the latest database cyberheist conducted by a Russian hacker group late Wednesday.

In the leak of World AntiDoping Agency (WADA) data, the ‘Fancy Bears’ accused 25 international athletes of taking illegal substances for which they had received therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) from international sports federations.

A statement published late Wednesday, WADA confirmed “the group released the confidential data of 25 athletes, from eight countries, into the public domain,” bringing the total number of athletes affected by the group’s cybercampaign to 29.

Olympic cyclist Bradley Wiggins and threetimes Tour de France winner Chris Froome from Britain were affected by the cyberheist, as were 10 Americans, five Germans, a Dane, a Russian, a Czech, a Romanian and three more Britons.

The leaked certificates alleged that Froome had been given a TUE for the antiinflammatory prednisolene while Wiggins received a number of TUEs for asthma medication, including Salbutamol that opens airways in the lungs.

Director General of WADA Olivier Niggli apologized to athletes for the leak and assured them “that we are receiving intelligence and advice from the highest level law enforcement and IT security agencies that we are putting into action.”

The Agency believed that the cyber attacks were being carried out in retaliation for the independent Pound and McLaren report “that exposed statesponsored doping in Russia,” Niggli said.

He said the organization had asked the Russian government to prevent such attacks coming from its territory and added that continued cyberthreats would undermine joint efforts to rebuild a functioning antidoping program in Russia.

On Aug. 8 the International Paralympic Committee banned Russian athletes from attending the 2016 games following findings in the McLaren report.

The latest attack follows a similar leak on Sept. 13 that implicated tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams, fourtime Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles and basketball player Elena Delle Donne.

Gymnast Biles, 19, took to Twitter to protest the leak of her private information by confirming that she legally took medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and that she wasn’t afraid to “let people know.”

Venus Williams said in a statement: “the exemptions posted in the hacked report are reviewed by an anonymous, independent group of doctors, and approved for legitimate medical reasons.”

WADA said it believed passwords for the database management system were acquired by the hackers through the spear phishing of email accounts.