Fukuhara among athletes whose medical data hacked

Women’s table tennis team bronze medalist Ai Fukuhara is among the three Japanese athletes who were targeted in the latest leak of confidential medical documents, a cyber hacker group said Monday.

The World Anti-Doping Agency admitted the same day the hacking organization calling itself “Fancy Bears” broke into its database and gained access to drug testing results for 20 athletes from 14 countries, including “three from Japan.”

Although WADA did not disclose names, the full list of 20 athletes, including Fukuhara, bronze medalist judoka Masashi Ebinuma and gold medalist swimmer Rie Kaneto, was released on the Fancy Bears website.

The data obtained from the Rio 2016 Olympic Games account revealed all three Japanese Olympic medalists had been granted physician’s approval to use medications for treatment of legitimate medical conditions in the past.

Last month, judoka Kaori Matsumoto, who won bronze in the women’s 57-kilogram class in Rio, became the first Japanese athlete whose confidential medical information was illegally obtained by hackers.

The document showed that Matsumoto had received a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) to use a drug known as dexamethasone to treat an injury in 2007.

(JAPANTODAY)