Rio Olympic rowing champion Kim Brennan is one of three Australian athletes to have confidential medical data published by the Russian cyber espionage group the Fancy Bears.
Brennan, cyclist Jack Bobridge and rower Alexander Belonogoff feature on a third list released by hackers who stole it from WADA’s data storage system relating to Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) granted to athletes.
The documents show single sculls champion Brennan and Belonogoff, who was part of men’s quadruple sculls silver medal-winning team in Rio, were allowed to take epinephrine, which is often administered to asthmatics.
Brennan was given three doses between June 2015 and January 2014 with Belonogoff injected three times between 2015 and 2013.
Track persuit silver medallist Bobridge, who was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2010, was prescribed with prednisolone and glucocorticoids over a five-year period.
The Australian trio were three of 11 athletes named on Friday along with British track star Laura Trott and double Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams.
Earlier this week US gymnastics superstar Simone Biles, and Serena and Venus Williams had their TUEs leaked online along with cycling champions Chris Froome and Sir Bradley Wiggins.
The International Olympic Committee called the leaks an “outrageous” breach of confidentiality and have offered to assist WADA in communicating with Russian authorities over the matter.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nation’s track and field athletes were banned from competing in Rio, along with their Paralympians, claimed the records raise a lot of questions.
“It seems as if healthy athletes are taking drugs legally that are prohibited for others, and people who are clearly suffering from serious illnesses, major disabilities, are suspected of taking some kind of substances and banned from the Paralympic Games,” Putin told Russian news agency TASS.
jacko
Guest
These reports have made a lot of people aware that there are many things which happen in sport that we are not informed about. When it came out that Sharipova had been using a drug that was for heart treatment everybody condemmed her, said how can an elite athlete have heart issues? and many wanted life bans, prise money refunds etc etc. What it shows is that many athletes take medicines like the rest of us but the biggest things that should come out of all this is that people should afford all athletes the benifit of explanation instead of bagging any and every non Aussie and defending all Aussies as perfect.
Minz
Guest
These privacy breaches are seriously infuriating (not to mention infantile on the part of the Russian authorities). Are they seriously comparing TUEs to cutting a hole in the wall of the lab and substituting urine samples, then giving your sports minister the final say on positive tests? Laughable. Oh, and adrenaline, really? Kim Brennan's clearly got a serious allergy to something - it's not exactly performance enhancing in one-off life-saving doses. Also really not the sort of thing that the ED staff are going to check for a TUE before administering.
Kim Brennan
Roar Rookie
Incorrect. I have a TUE for adrenaline, administered once in an emergency department for severe anaphylaxis. I have an ongoing TUE as I carry an Epi Pen in the case of recurrence. I have not been administered adrenaline multiple times as you suggest, but only once, in hospital. I have, however, declared my TUE in various doping control tests, as is procedure. I can assure you, the administration to me of adrenaline was not performance enhancing, but life saving. I was seriously ill for a significant period after the administration of this medication, as anyone who has suffered severe anaphylaxis would be able to understand. The major issue here is a serious breach of privacy in relation to personal medical records.