Culture
'Fake' anti-doping test results leaked after Polish agency targeted by cyber attack
The Polish anti-doping agency (POLADA) said on Wednesday that it was the victim of a cyber attack that led to false details of positive tests from a number of athletes being leaked.
Many of Poland’s most high-profile athletes were listed in the supposed leaks, including tennis world No 1 Iga Swiatek and Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski, who has been one of Europe’s leading footballers for more than a decade.
The supposed leaks were then shared on social media before being described as “fake” by POLADA.
A statement from the agency on X, formerly Twitter, in response to a since deleted tweet outlining the allegations read: “Info presented in this post about Polish athletes is a fake.
“All of these posts are aimed to discredit Polish athletes, who don’t deserve that cause (sic) they compete clean. Non (sic) of this (sic) athletes was positive and non (sic) of presented dates is matching doping controls which were conducted.”
Info presented in this post about Polish athletes is a fake. All of this posts are aimed to discredit Polish athletes, who don’t deserve that cause they compete clean. Non of this athletes was positive and non of presented dates is matching doping controls which were conducted.
— Polska Agencja Antydopingowa (@POLADA_official) August 14, 2024
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), the authority that deals with doping in tennis, has told The Athletic that their records have no evidence of any adverse findings for Swiatek.
The agency’s records includes the period Swiatek was alleged to have tested positive, even though at that time anti-doping fell under the remit of the International Tennis Federation (ITF).
In a subsequent tweet, POLADA wrote: “In connection with the hacking attack we inform you, that data is used by cyber criminals for various purposes, including widely understood disinformation.
“In the public domain fake news discrediting Polish athletes has appeared. Please do not duplicate them.
“None of the listed athletes will have a positive result and none of the terms presented correspond to conducted anti-doping controls.”
— Polska Agencja Antydopingowa (@POLADA_official) August 14, 2024
The Swiatek camp referred to POLADA’s statements when contacted for comment.
POLADA is the national anti-doping organisation (NADO) recognised by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for Poland.
WADA is responsible for coordinating anti-doping rules and policies across all sports, including tennis and football.
Lewandowski’s representatives have also been contacted for comment.
(Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of books that made huge impacts on society after they were published — some of them even spurring changes to American laws. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself. This week’s literary geography quiz highlights places where authors were born (or lived) that later became locations in their books. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the works if you’d like to do further reading.
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