By Alberto Amalfi | Monday, September 19, 2016
Hackers have obtained and released Rafael Nadal's drug records from the Rio Olympic Games.
Photo credit: Getty
Rafael Nadal is the latest player whose drug records have been hacked and leaked.
The Russian hacker group Fancy Bears, which previously posted drug records for Americans Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Bethanie Mattek-Sands, posted Nadal's drug records online today.
Watch: Williams Sisters Drug Records Hacked
The documents show Nadal held Therapeutic Use Exemptions for two different drugs in 2009 and 2012 and did not violate any World Anti-Doping Agency rules.
A Therapeutic Use Exemption permits a player to use a prohibited medication without committing an anti-doping rule violation, provided the player has a medical condition warranting use of the drug and that all use is in accordance with the conditions of the TUE.
In September, 2009, Nadal had a TUE for the drug, Betamethasone, commonly used to treat skin conditions.
In August, 2012, Nadal held a TUE for the drug Tetracosactide used to treat adrenal gland insufficiency.
Fancy Bears posted Nadal's records days after revealing the hacked medical records for Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Bethanie Mattek-Sands.
Records for Germany's Laura Siegemund were also posted by the hacker group.
Nadal is one of several champions, including Roger Federer and Andy Murray, who have asked the game's governing bodies for greater transparency in drug-testing results.
Prior to the Mutua Madrid Open in May, Nadal formally requested the International Tennis Federation make public his entire history of drug-test results and blood profile records. In a letter to ITF president Dave Haggerty, Nadal asked the ITF to “please make public my biological passport, my complete history of anti-doping controls and tests.”
Nadal urged anti-doping officials to announce when a player is being tested and the results of the drug test believing greater transparency will prove the game is clean.
"The sport should be clean and must look clean, no?" Nadal said. "Should be, in my opinion—always in my opinion—much better for the transparency of the sport in general to say, you know, Rafa Nadal is passing an anti-doping control today and the result going to be in two weeks. In the result, you publish the results. The anti-doping control is negative. That's it.
"This will be much easier for everybody. Should be much easier for the world of sport, and for sure will be easier for you guys, that you don't have to think. Just have to read. For the people, at the same time, too, they don't have to create opinion. They have the proof."
Last April, Nadal filed a defamation lawsuit against Roselyne Bachelot, the French minister of health and sports between 2007 and 2010, who told a French television program Nadal "without any doubt tested positive" for a banned substance and had served a silent ban in 2012 and 2013.
See Nadal vow to sue "everyone" who makes unfounded doping allegations against him at 2:20 of the video here: