IAAF President Sebastian Coe has defended therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) -- but admitted that there is "potential" for exploitation, according to the BBC. TUEs can be issued to athletes who "need to use medication" on the World Anti-Doping Agency's prohibited list. Coe said, "The TUEs system is a good system. Do we have to make sure that it is not being abused? Yes, of course. There is potential for that, but I don't think it is commonly the case." Coe said that his organization imposes a "very deep process" before TUEs are granted. He said, "We are very tough. We log everything with WADA and, when a TUE is appropriate, they can come back and ask us for more information" (BBC, 9/18). REUTERS' Alan Baldwin reported Olympic champions Mo Farah, Rafael Nadal and Justin Rose were "among athletes targeted on Monday in the latest leak of confidential medical documents" that WADA said were hacked by a Russian cyber espionage group. Documents relating to Farah, and published on the fancybear.net website, "showed that the distance runner had no active" TUEs at the time of the Olympics. He "received intravenous infusions of saline solution, morphine sulphate and vicodin administered orally during a period in hospital between July 3-5, 2014 when he had collapsed after a training run." The documents relating to Nadal, "who was out for more than two months with a wrist injury that forced him to miss the French Open and Wimbledon before the Olympics," showed exemptions in '09 and '12. The fourth release of data so far "concerned 26 athletes from Argentina, Belgium, Burundi, Canada, Denmark, France, Britain, Hungary, Spain and the United States" (REUTERS, 9/19). In London, Ed Malyon reported Farah has "no complaints about his medical records being revealed." A statement on his behalf, posted on Twitter by Sky News reporter Paul Kelso, said, "As Mo has previously stated, he has got nothing to hide and doesn't have a problem with this or any of his ADAMS information being released -- as evidenced by the fact that he voluntarily shared his blood data with the Sunday Times last year. 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" (DAILY MIRROR, 9/19).
EXPLAIN YOURSELF: Also in London, Matt Dickinson reported British cyclist Bradley Wiggins was "facing mounting pressure" on Sunday to justify his use of powerful allergy medication after he and Team Sky "came under fresh criticism over their use of injections." Wiggins issued a second statement over the weekend "about the three triamcinolone acetonide jabs that he received shortly before grand tour races." Wiggins was given permission because of "a severe pollen allergy." But one leading sports scientist within cycling said that Team Sky’s image for being “squeaky clean, cleaner than the rest” had been called into question by the use and timing of the medication. Jeroen Swart, a South African physiologist, said that Sky should explain why Wiggins "needed to take a strong corticosteroid before significant races." Swart: "Although this isn’t any evidence of any doping practice, it just is a little too far in terms of my comfort with respect to the ethical boundaries of the sport" (LONDON TIMES, 9/19). In London, Owen Gibson wrote Wiggins "faces a fight for his reputation as some of his hitherto most loyal supporters echo questions around his record on performance-enhancing drugs." Wiggins has been "forced to deny that the controversial Belgian doctor Geert Leinders was involved" in his obtaining TUEs. Wiggins has also had to "clarify apparent inconsistencies between what he wrote in 2012 about the use of needles and the details that have emerged via the Fancy Bears hackers." There is "no suggestion Wiggins did anything to break anti-doping regulations." But those "shades of grey are likely to be pored over even more closely in the coming days and weeks as the Fancy Bears release even more confidential medical records" hacked from the WADA database during the Rio Olympics. The problem for Wiggins, for Brailsford, for Team Sky and even for British Cycling as a whole is that "having insisted so publicly and so vehemently they would be whiter than white, anything less starts to look like hypocrisy" (GUARDIAN, 9/18).
