Russian Hackers Not on the Agenda

(ATR) The issue of Russian hackers did not come up during a meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Alexander Zhukov, the head of the Russian Olympic Committee.

The ROC confirms to Around the Rings that talks between Putin and Zhukov on Wednesday did not address the issue of the Fancy Bear group, which has so far released personal medical data on 29 athletes after gaining access to WADA’s database.

WADA has asked the Russian government to do whatever it can to stop the cyber-attacks, which it says "seriously undermine the work that is being carried out to rebuild a compliant anti-doping program in Russia".

WADA maintains that the attacks are some form of revenge against the two separate investigations led by Richard Pound and Richard McLaren which revealed state-directed doping in Russia. The revelations led to the IAAF’s ban on the country’s athletics team from the Rio Olympics, the International Paralympic Committee’s blanket ban on Russia and several international federations blocking Russian athletes from competing at the 2016 Games.

While Putin and Zhukov did not discuss hackers, they did talk about how Russian athletes fared at the Rio Olympics, the influence of the performances in Rio on Russia's younger generation and what steps to take in developing sports on a national level.

Russia finished fourth in the medals table in Rio with 56, 19 of them gold. The team’s performance, with only about 70 percent of their athletes cleared to participate, equaled the fourth place result at the London 2012 Games.

Written by Gerard Farek

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