While the Internet has definitely changed the way we interact and communicate with one another for the better, it also carries the inherent risk of having your personal and private information spread out to the rest of the world in an instant. This is exactly what happened to the top U.S. Olympic athletes, as their precious medical records have been leaked out by a notorious Russian hacking group with the operator known as Tsar Team aka Fancy Bear spearheading the effort.
Several of the creme de la creme U.S. Olympic athletes had their respective medical files uploaded for all and sundry to see yesterday. This dastardly act was performed by a notorious Russian hacking group, where the main reason of doing so was to depict the other nation’s “tainted victories” at the recently concluded Rio 2016 Games..
According to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the hack has been confirmed. The hack saw the hackers make a break for WADA’s Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) database. This was done through an International Olympic Committee (IOC)-created account specially meant for the Rio 2016 Games. As for the athlete data mined, those included confidential medical data in the line of Therapeutic Use Exemptions that were delivered by International Sports Federations (IFs) and National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs) which were connected to the Rio 2016 Games.
Just what are Therapeutic Use Exemptions? These are basically the official nod for athletes who carry or suffer from select medical conditions so that they can utilize drugs which are normally banned by WADA as those could provide a performance boost that would offer a slight edge over the rest of the competition.
Some of the U.S.’ top athletes whose medical records have been compromised include the agile gymnast Simone Biles, sisters Serena and Venus Williams who have conquered the tennis world for quite a while now, as well as women’s basketball forward Elena Delle Donne. So far, all four of them have not been suspended before for consuming a banned substance.
