President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that World Anti-Doping Agency documents leaked in a hack blamed on Russian cyberspies had raised “lots of questions” about medical exemptions that allow athletes to take banned substances.
 “We do not support what the hackers do, but what they did cannot but be of interest to the international community, and most of all to the sports community,” Putin said at a regional leaders summit in Central Asian Kyrgyzstan, Russian news agencies reported. “It raises lots of questions.”
 WADA said in a statement earlier this week that the Russian cyber-espionage group Tsar Team (APT28), also known as Fancy Bears, had broken into its Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS).
The hacking group released information from the files of US Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams, among others.
 Putin slammed the fact that “healthy athletes” had been allowed to take forbidden medication while Russia’s Paralympians had been excluded from the Rio Paralympics “under suspicion of having taken some kind of drugs”.
 Russia is still smarting after its track and field athletes were banned from the Olympics and its entire Paralympics team turfed out of their Games over evidence of state-sponsored doping.
 WADA called the hack “retaliation” after it released reports detailing the cheating and called on Russia to help stop the hacking of its computer systems. The Kremlin reacted promptly by saying it was ready to help while denying Russian involvement in the hack.
 Meanwhile, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach has asked Russian authorities for help to stop the hackers. The IOC supports the efforts of the World Anti-Doping Agency to stop the activities of a Russian hacking group, he said.
 Documents released online by the hacking group list normally forbidden substances which the athletes are using under medical exemptions.
 Bach will, meanwhile, not be attending tomorrow’s closing ceremony of the Paralympics, an IOC spokesman confirmed.
Bach cancelled his planned trip to the opening ceremony and has not visited the Games in Rio de Janeiro at all.
 Bach is a guest in New York at the weekend for a United Nations summit on migration and refugees. He will take part in the UN General Assembly debate and meet UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the IOC spokesman said.
 Bach had planned to attend the opening ceremony of the Paralympics at the Maracana Stadium but instead decided to attend the funeral of former West German President Walter Scheel in Berlin.
 Brazilian police wish to speak to Bach in a black market Olympic ticket scandal, though he is not the subject of an investigation. IOC member Patrick Hickey has been charged in Brazil in relation to alleged illegal ticket sales.