Burundian Athlete Victim Of Hackers

Francine Niyonsaba Photo: AFP

Burundi’s Francine Niyonsaba’s, who won silver in the women's 800m at the Olympics in Rio, is the first African whose details have been linked on the Fancy Bears hacking site. 

BBC Africa Live report continues:

Fancy Bears is a name of a hacker or hackers who stole athletes' personal information held by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) database - and have been looking at the use of “Therapeutic Use Exemption” drugs which are banned substances that some sportsmen and women use in order to treat existing problems. 

The drug that Francine Nyonsaba has been cleared to take by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is Tibolone. 

A quick Google search tells us it “works by mimicking the activity of the female sex hormones, oestrogen and progesterone. It also has some male hormone [androgen] effects" and helps to "restore the balance of female hormones in women who have a lack of oestrogen”

So there is no evidence or indeed any accusations that Niyonsaba has done anything wrong at all. In a nutshell, it seems that Fancy Bears is trying to highlight that a lot of sportsmen and women are taking banned substances with permission and that the Russian doping problems are not as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

Francine Niyonsaba Photo: AFP