MX23RW : Saturday, November 16 10:06:01| >> :600:257820618:257820618:

Chris Froome, Sir Bradley Wiggins medical records leaked by 'Russian hackers'

British cyclists Chris Froome and Sir Bradley Wiggins have had their medical data leaked by alleged Russian hackers.

British cyclists Chris Froome and Sir Bradley Wiggins have had their medical records leaked by alleged Russian hackers, who stole the information from the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The pair are the latest sports stars to be targeted after the medical data of Venus and Serena Williams, as well as USA Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, was leaked.

The hackers, known as 'Fancy Bear', have detailed therapeutic use exemptions, which is when an athlete is given permission by a governing body to use a banned drug for medical reasons.

According to The Guardian, the latest leaked documents claim that three-time Tour de France winner Froome was allowed to take prednisolone, which treats a number of autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, for a five-day period in May 2013 and for seven days during the Tour of Romandie in April 2014.

As for Wiggins, it has been claimed that the five-time Olympic champion was given TUEs dating back to June 2008 for asthma medications, triamcinolone, which treats his pollen allergy, and salbutamol - a substance that opens up the airways in the lungs.

WADA has confirmed that the data has been stolen, and it involves 25 athletes, five of whom are from Great Britain, while 10 are from the United States.

A statement from WADA director general Olivier Niggli said: "WADA is very mindful that this criminal attack, which to date has recklessly exposed personal data of 29 athletes, will be very distressing for the athletes targeted and cause apprehension for all athletes that were involved in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

"To those athletes that have been impacted, we regret that criminals have attempted to smear your reputations in this way and assure you that we are receiving intelligence and advice from the highest level law enforcement and IT security agencies that we are putting into action.

"Given this intelligence and advice, 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.

"We condemn this criminal activity and have asked the Russian Government to do everything in their power to make it stop. Continued cyber-attacks emanating from Russia seriously undermine the work that is being carried out to rebuild a compliant anti-doping program in Russia.

"We still believe access to ADAMS was obtained through spear phishing of email accounts, whereby, ADAMS passwords were obtained enabling access to ADAMS account information confined to the Rio 2016 Games. We have no reason to believe that other ADAMS data has been compromised.

"WADA is reaching out to NADOs (National Anti-Doping Organisations) and Ifs (International Federations) whose athletes are impacted by this new data release so they can provide them with the necessary support."

A statement from Froome - tweeted by BBC Sport's Dan Roan - in response to the data, read: "I've openly discussed my TUEs with the media and have no issues with the leak which only confirms my statements. In nine years as a professional, I've twice required a TUE for exacerbated asthma, the last time was in 2014."

British golfer Charley Hull, Olympic rower Sam Townsend and rugby union player and bobsleigh competitor Heather Fisher were included in previous leaked documents.

ID:281338: cacheID:281338:1false2false3false:QQ:: from db desktop :LenBod:restore:5153:
Restore Data
Share this article now:
A general view of the IOC Anti-Doping Laboratory based at the Richmond Olympic Oval on February 9, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada
Read Next:
Russian hackers leak US athletes' files
>