There is much wrong in the world of sport, including doping.
Intrinsically most sports bodies are placed in tough positions, often at odds with their own self-interests. Should a sport admit to a doping problem when it may damage its own future?
Then there’s WADA – the World Anti-Doping Authority. It has an ineffectual leader in Craig Readie, has been criticised for not doing enough, and they’ve been hacked by a group calling itself “Fancy Bears.” While it doesn’t seem to be definitive, it would seem the hacker group is Russian, and there’s a widely-held belief that the hack is in response to the banning of some Russian competitors at the Olympics in Rio (as well as all Russian Paralympic competitors).
This followed what would seem to be prima facie evidence of state sponsored doping conducted in Russia in recent years, and notably during the Sochi Winter Olympics.
The target of the hack group seems to be Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUE); certificates given to athletes that allow them to continue to compete, while taking drugs that would otherwise be deemed illegal. TUEs are usually granted at a fairly high level, with doctors representing the governing bodies determining whether they are allowable.
While an athlete’s overall health is, like anybody else’s, a matter for them and their doctor, some have chosen to talk about them publicly in the past.
In this instance, the hacking group is presenting details of the TUEs of select athletes. And when I say select, I mean predominantly American, British and German. Curiously they have not published the details of any TUEs given to Russian athletes.
And that’s where my problem lies.
This isn’t like Wikileaks putting up a full database and letting people sift through it. It’s a staggered and potentially incomplete leak with a particular story to spin. And the press seems to be falling hook, line and sinker for it.
The weekend’s newspapers were full of stories about the likes of Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome. But since it’s an incomplete set of records, we’re not getting a full picture. We don’t know, for example, how many TUEs are awarded full stop. Perhaps the majority of athletes have them, or have had them? We simply don’t know.
Instead we’re being drip fed records to support a hacker group’s own story.
Now I do think that there’s a very legitimate set of questions to ask around the use of TUEs. For example, if an athlete is so ill that they need strong drugs, should they be competing at all? Some sports may inherently cause health issues that mean many competitors are on similar sets of drugs e.g. asthma amongst swimmers and cyclists. Again, we don’t know. R
The problem is that we’re falling into the hands of selective leakers who are dictating the story.
Maybe all TUE certificates should be made public when they’re awarded. On the other hand, health records are normally very confidential documents. Many of us prefer not to have all our maladies out in the open. Should part of deal of being a professional athlete be that your medical records are an open book?
One way or another, a hack took place, and once the information is out there, it can’t be ignored. But let’s not forget the bigger picture, where all things seem to point east…