Mo Farah says he's never been a doper as Russians hack IAAF

Sir Mo Farah has stressed he has never been a doper after the Russian hacking group the Fancy Bears released a huge batch of documents and emails which they claimed is from the International Association of Athletics Federations.

Sir Mo Farah has stressed he has never been a doper after the Russian hacking group the Fancy Bears released a huge batch of documents and emails. Picture: Mike Egerton/PA Wire

The Fancy Bears published the material on their website on Wednesday, claiming they want “to show the scale of doping violations in track and field and to expose [the] inefficiency of anti-doping control”.

A spokesman for Farah said: “It has been widely reported that previous leaks from this organisation have included false or altered documents, and we have asked the IAAF to urgently look into the validity.

“Regardless, any suggestion of misconduct is entirely false and seriously misleading. Mo Farah has been subject to many blood tests during his career and has never failed a single one. We have never been informed of any of Mo’s test results being outside of the legal parameters set by the relevant authorities, nor has Mo ever been contacted by the IAAF about any individual result. It is totally incorrect and defamatory to suggest otherwise, and we will pursue any claims to the contrary.”

In April, the IAAF confirmed it had been the victim of a “cyber-attack” by the group in February. At the time, the IAAF said it looked like the Fancy Bears were trying to access the database on which it stored its therapeutic use exemption (TUE) records – doctors’ notes which allow athletes to use medication which would be otherwise banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Wednesday’s release, however, suggests the Fancy Bears obtained far more material than just TUE applications, as they have released what appear to be reams of documents and emails related to several ongoing anti-doping investigations.