Wada plays down Fancy Bears' allegations of political in-fighting at top of Olympic movement

The Fancy Bears Hack Team claimed on Wednesday that an 'Anglo-Saxon' coalition is attempting 'to remove the Europeans from the leadership in the Olympic movement'

Thomas Bach, head of the IOC, and Craig Reedie, head of Wada (Getty)

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has played down attempts made by the so-called Fancy Bears Hack Team to highlight political in-fighting and discord at the top of the Olympic movement.

The Russian-linked cyber-espionage group, which last year released medical records belonging to numerous high-profile athletes, including Mo Farah and Bradley Wiggins, yesterday published alleged correspondence between officials from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), and third-party groups associated with the organisations.

The hacking group claims such communications point to evidence of a struggle for “power and cash” between senior Olympic officials, as seen by the desire to establish Wada as an independent body from the IOC.

In one internal message released by the Fancy Bears, a top lawyer for the IOC criticised Wada for publishing Dr Richard McLaren's damning reports into the Russian doping scandal.

“It seems that RM’s first report was intended to lead to the complete expulsion of the Russian team from the Rio Games,” lawyer Howard Stupp wrote.

“And the second report? To expulse the Russian team from the Pyeongchang Games?” he said, referring to the 2018 Winter Olympics. “This put the IOC in a very difficult position.”

In a statement released to The Independent, Wada seemingly acknowledged the veracity of the correspondence released by the hacking group but rubbished their allegations.

“As you know, the Fancy Bears are a criminal organization which seeks to undermine the work of WADA and its partners,” the agency said.

Wada, headed by Craig Reedie, is alleging leading an 'Anglo-Saxon' coalition against the IOC (Getty)

“Everything that they have posted is dated.”

The USOC was similarly approached by The Independent but declined to comment.

That attempts have been made to actively establish Wada as an independent entity is well known. Last year the USOC released an anti-doping position paper calling for the agency to distance itself from the sports organisations it works with and monitors.

Responding to Wednesday’s hack, Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, said: “If anything it shows what we’ve said since Day 1 of our existence: You can’t both promote and police. You have to have independent organizations handling anti-doping operations.”

Initially funded by the IOC, Wada currently receives half of its budgetary requirements from the Olympic body, with the rest funded by various national governments.

The IOC’s influence stretches to Wada’s 38-member Foundation Board - the organisation’s highest decision-making authority - which is comprised equally of IOC representatives and representatives of national governments.

The Fancy Bears’ Hack Team argue that Wada and the USOC, in seeking to split from the IOC, are actively targeting “political dominance” within the Olympic movement under the guise of fighting doping within the sport.

“The genuine intentions of the coalition headed by the Anglo-Saxons are much less noble than a war against doping,” they wrote on their website.

“It is apparent that the Americans and the Canadians are eager to remove the Europeans from the leadership in the Olympic movement,” they wrote, “to achieve political dominance of the English-speaking nations.”

The hack comes in the wake of the IOC’s decision to ban Russia from competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics over the country’s "systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system”