BISHKEK, September 16. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn attention to the double standards anti-doping agencies pursue in their activities.
"We don’t support what hackers have been doing, but their findings cannot but be of interest to the international public, sports public first and foremost. Very many questions arise. Healthy athletes legally take medications outlawed for others, while people, who obviously suffer from grave illnesses and disabilities, are barred from participation in Paralympic Games on sheer suspicion," Putin said at a narrow format’s meeting with the CIS leaders at the summit of the Commonwealth on Friday.
"This breaks all bounds," he said.
The CIS leaders brought up the theme of WADA after Putin in his address congratulated Kyrgyzstan’s President Almazbek Atambayev upon the success of the Nomad Games.
"That the president of Kyrgyzstan has held such large-scale and thrilling competitions is just great. Congratulations," Putin said.
Atambayev replied one of the main advantages of the just-ended Nomad Games was there was no politics involved whatsoever.
An anonymous group of hackers posted information on their website Fancybears.net on Tuesday about hacking personal medical histories of athletes from the United States and the drugs they were prescribed in recent years, which were on WADA’s restricted list.
They group announced the hacking of the database of ADAMS (Anti-Doping Administration & Management System) and leaked documents proving that WADA found an official loophole to sanction the use of banned performance enhancing drugs by US legendary tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams, US four-time Olympic Champion in gymnastics Simone Biles, as well as North American women’s basketball player Elena Dolle Donne.
WADA Director General Olivier Niggli issued a hasty response on the matter on Tuesday night calling the cyber-attack a criminal act on behalf of Russia and saying that "WADA has been informed by law enforcement authorities that these attacks are originating out of Russia."
Amid the most recent developments, the hackers from the very same web source came up on Wednesday night with another batch of revealing information. They posted documents exposing the fact that the global anti-doping agency WADA favored the consumption of banned drugs by 25 more athletes from eight countries.
Among the athletes in the newly-published list of 25 alleged doping abusers, the Fancybears.net website sheds light on 14 medal winners from the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Brazil, including Russian boxer Misha Aloyan, who won the Rio silver last month in men’s under-52 kg category.