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Olympic triathlon champion Alistair Brownlee: Medical data leaks exceptionally worrying

Olympic triathlon champion Alistair Brownlee says it is “exceptionally worrying” that athletes’ medical data has been hacked, but insists he is unconcerned should access to his records be made public.

Several athletes have had private medical data leaked as part of the Russian cyber-hack on the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Bradley Wiggins, Rafael Nadal and Mo Farah are among the high-profile names to have had confidential records hacked by the group known as ‘Fancy Bears’.

The revelation of the use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) has been a particular point of contention.

TUEs allow athletes to use banned substances if they have a genuine medical need and there is no suggestion that any competitor whose records have been leaked has broken any rules.

And Alastair Brownlee, who retained the Olympic gold medal he won in London at Rio 2016, says the leaks do not concern him as he has nothing to hide.

Speaking to Omnisport, alongside brother Jonny, he said: “It’s exceptionally worrying that they can get into that situation and access private medical records.

“But neither of us have any particular TUEs we need hiding. I think you [Jonny] haven’t got any.

“I’ve got one thing for when I climbed Kilimanjaro so we’re not particularly worried about it, if it comes out it comes out.”

Jonny Brownlee, who claimed silver behind Alastair in Rio, says that the issue of TUEs is not a point of discussion between rival competitors.

“I’ve not talked to any [other] athletes about it,” he said.

“When you are racing you’re so focused on racing and not worrying about anything else.

“But I’ve not been to many big events with any athletes since it happened so I’ve not had any conversations about it.”

Alastair and Jonny Brownlee were speaking at the fourth annual Brownlee Tri in Leeds.

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