The Fancy Bear APT group has leaked yet more medical data stolen from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), this time for Spanish tennis champion Rafael Nadal, golfer Justin Rose and Britain’s Olympic gold medalist in track and field, Mo Farah.
The group, believed to be tied to the Kremlin, has been busy in the last week leaking confidential Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) online. These are special permissions from the Olympics organizers that allow athletes to use banned substances where a medical condition requires it. Last week, Simone Biles and Serena Williams became victims, along with more than a dozen other Olympic athletes.
Two of Nadal’s, from 2009 and 2012, were made available, along with two for Farah. Farah was given a TUE for an 80mg dosage of the corticosteroid triamcinolone—typically used to treat infections—in October 2008, and in 2014 received intravenous infusions of saline solution and morphine sulphate, and oral Vicodin, while in the hospital after a collapse. As for Rose, the records show that he had authorization for daily dosages of the anti-inflammatory drug prednisolone between May and June 20, 2016.
None of the records indicate the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
In addition to the three stars, records for 26 athletes from Argentina, Belgium, Burundi, Canada, Denmark, France, Britain, Hungary, Spain and the United States were leaked, according to Reuters, including US Gold medal gymnast Laurie Hernandez and British champion rower Helen Glover.
This is the fourth Fancy Bear data drop from this particular database. The leaks are believed to be in retaliation for WADA’s decision to recommend the IOC ban all Russian athletes at the Rio Games.
“Let it be known that these criminal acts are greatly compromising the effort by the global anti-doping community to re-establish trust in Russia," WADA director-general Olivier Niggli said last week.
Photo © lazyllama