Leaked reports: Nothing to hide, say Nadal and Farah

Cyber-hacking group publishes more athletes’ medical records

LONDON: Rafael Nadal and British Olympic great Mo Farah said they have nothing to hide after their medical records were the latest to be leaked by a cyber-hacking group on Monday.

They are among more than 60 international athletes, including 17 from the British team at the Rio Olympics, who have had their medical files — mostly therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) — published online by the so-called Fancy Bears, who have hacked into World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) records.

There is no suggestion that any of the named athletes — among them some of the biggest names in sport — have done anything wrong.

Spanish tennis ace Nadal and four-time Olympic champion distance runner Farah were shown to have used TUEs in the past to gain permission to take substances that figure on WADA’s banned list.

TUEs can be issued to athletes who have an illness or condition that requires the use of normally prohibited medication.

“When you ask permission to take something for therapeutic reasons and they give it to you, you’re not taking anything prohibited,” Nadal, a 14-time grand slam winner, told Spanish media. “It’s not news, it’s just inflammatory.”

Nadal, who has twice been granted a TUE, said he had never taken anything to improve his performance but took what doctors advised him was the best medication to care for his troublesome knee.

Nadal and Farah were among 26 athletes in Monday’s fourth batch to have their medical history published by Fancy Bears, following the likes of Serena and Venus Williams, American gymnast Simone Biles and British Tour de France-winning cyclists Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome.

The first of Farah’s two TUEs was in 2008 for the same drug prescribed to fellow Olympic champion Wiggins — triamcinolone, a type of steroid.

His other exemption was for a saline drip and two pain-killers that the 33-year-old was given after he collapsed in Park City, Utah, where he was training at altitude in 2014.

A spokesperson for Farah said, “Mo’s medical care is overseen at all times by British Athletics and over the course of his long career he has only ever had two TUEs.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2016.

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