Rio Olympics 2016: Valerie Adams' Rio rival granted drug exemption

Valerie Adams congratulates Michelle Carter after being pipped for shot put gold in Rio. Photo / AP

Michelle Carter, who last month denied Valerie Adams a third Olympic gold medal, received an exemption in Rio that allowed her to take otherwise-banned substances for medical reasons.

Carter was among the latest athletes whose therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) were leaked by Russian hackers, revealing the American was granted permission to use three drugs before the Games began.

The shot put champion, who consigned Adams to silver, received approval from anti-doping authorities to take Medrol Dosepak and Breo Ellpita, drugs common in the treatment asthma, as well as Depo-Medrol, used to allay joint pain.

Documents released by the Fancy Bears hacking group showed Carter had previously been denied permission to take the substances, when a February 2015 application was rejected, but was subsequently granted a TUE for all three drugs during the Rio Games.

According to the Sports Integrity Initiative website, the documents leaked did not indicate why Carter received the TUEs after initially being turned down but there was no suggestion that, in reapplying for the exemptions, she had done anything wrong.

And Drug Free Sport New Zealand chief executive Graeme Steel said Carter, not Adams nor any other competitor in the shot put, was the wronged party in such a scenario.

"The only people who should feel aggrieved are the ones who have been named on this list," Steel said. "This is their private medical information and should never have ended up in the public domain.

"If you're an asthmatic, you shouldn't be prevented from competing. You should be allowed to medicate, provided there are checks and balances about how much you take and what you take."

Adams was initially robbed of a gold medal at the London Olympics, when Nadzeya Ostapchuk took the title before being stripped of victory after failing a drug test. But Steel said there was no comparison between the circumstances of the Belarussian and Carter.

"They're completely different things - [Ostapchuk] was taking anabolic steroids," Steel said. "This is the system working, rather than the reverse."