MMM: Just because Rafael Nadal has nothing to hide doesn't mean athletes don't have a case to answer. PHOTO/AP
OH BROTHER, here we go again and this time we didn't have to wait that long.
No, I'm not talking about the brotherly gesture of one Brownlee sibling towards another but the drip-feed revelations of a group of cyber hackers calling itself Fancy Bears.
Athletes have barely finished passing the bling around in their communities following the Rio Olympics when we discover a who's who of sportspeople is allowed to take banned substances.
Double gold medallist Mo Farah seems to have become the poster boy for 60 international athletes, including 17 Team Great Britain Rio Olympians granted therapeutic use exemptions (TUES).
They include 14-time tennis major champion Rafael Nadal, Tour de France-winning and Olympic cycling champion Sir Bradley Wiggins, Olympic golf champion Justin Rose, champion tennis sisters Serena and Venus Williams, and the darling of Rio gymnastics Simone Biles, to name a few.
On reading media reports you get the impression the Fancy Bears, believed to be Russians, are somehow guilty of muck raking.
Furthermore, it's explicitly stated there's no suggestion the listed athletes have done anything untoward.
Firstly I couldn't care less if the hackers were from Tristan da Cunha, the single most remote inhabited place in the world.
Secondly, while the athletes may be exonerated of any wrongdoing now that doesn't mean there's no case to answer.
Those who have used TUES have gained permission to take substances classified as banned on World Anti-Doping Agency's (Wada's) list.
TUES are issued to those who have an illness or condition that requires the use of normally prohibited medication.
My oh my, Wada has a lot to answer for after taking the high ground on countries such as Russia, China and East Germany.
"When you ask permission to take something for therapeutic reasons and they give it to you, you're not taking anything prohibited," Nadal reportedly declared in his defence. "It's not news, it's just inflammatory."
Tut, tut, I vehemently disagree.
If a country orders its athletes to engage in systematic doping, does that mean culpability doesn't rest with individuals because they did it under duress?
Regrettably transparency seems to be lacking here.
It is logical to question Wada's motives for keeping the list of names in secret cyber vaults.
Any arguments of protecting individuals' privacy won't cut it either simply because such measures have the propensity mask ill practices.
If individuals have been granted leeway to take substances, such as triamcinolone (a type of steroid), then why is that shrouded in secrecy?
Triamcinolone, medical literature reveals, is used to treat a variety of conditions including breathing problems and can be injected into muscle and joints.
Enough said. Therein lies ample evidence that athletes can use it to gain unfair advantage over others, condition or no condition.
One can argue if there should be clemency for someone who eats a piece of steak in a restaurant which buys meat from suppliers who inject their animals with steroids for robust returns.
Farah first used the drug, also prescribed to Wiggins, in 2008.
However, he conveniently chose not to disclose it in 2014 when he told media in 2014 his only TUE was administered that year in the form of a saline drip and two pain killers when he collapsed while training at altitude in Utah.
The clarifications came during questions about his coach, Alberto Salazar, who the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) is still investigating.
Wiggins got the green light to use corticosteroid triamcinolone for allergies before the 2011-12 editions of the Tour de France and then reloaded the drug into his system just before the Giro d'Italia.
This is the same drug self-confessed cheat Lance Armstrong tested positive for at the 1999 Tour de France.
Not surprisingly Wiggins' spin doctors have scrambled to clarify comments he made in his 2012 autobiography that he religiously adheres to his sport's "no-needles" policy.
Wada has set a precedent that smacks of elitism in sports.
By allowing a select few athletes to use banned substances for medicinal purposes it is implying some players are indispensible, almost in the laughable leniency shown to tennis glamour queen Maria Sharapova.
In the absence of transparency, there's nothing stopping countless athletes from manipulating illnesses to gain unfair advantage from the side effects of drugs such as triamcinolone.
You see, the technicality surrounding Alistair Brownlee carrying disorientated and exhausted brother Jonny over the line of the World Triathlon Series in Mexico this week is rendered a joke in light of the hackers' revelations.
Family loyalty aside (Jonny, by the way, was no Good Samaritan when Alistair was in the same position before), shouldn't Jonny be entitled to a super saline drip and pain killers to ensure he could finished winners like Farah or Wiggins?