The grip, a phenomenon much more present between the coach and his athlete?

• Former swimmer and two-time Olympic champion Yannick Agnel admitted to having sex with a 13-year-old minor in 1996, when he was 24.

• The case which sadly illustrates the phenomenon of influence and its frequency in sport.

• For the director Pierre-Emmanuel Luneau-Daurignac, author of several works on the subject, a cultural revolution in our vision of high-level sport must take place.

The former French swimmer Yannick Agnel acknowledged, Monday, "the materiality of the facts", indicated the prosecutor of the Republic of Mulhouse, Edwige Roux-Morizot. The facts, in this case "sexual assault" and "rape on a minor", date back to 2016, the double Olympic champion from London was training at the Mulhouse Olympic swimming (MON). And this repeated sexual violence "in Mulhouse, in the region, abroad as in Thailand or in Rio" was denounced by "Naome Horter, who was then 13 years old and he was 24", detailed the prosecutor.

The Yannick Agnel case which illustrates the moral, intellectual or physical hold in the world of sport.

A relationship of domination that the director and journalist Pierre-Emmanuel Luneau-Daurignac studied at length, author of the documentary 

(France, 2020, 91 min, available on Arte).

Interviewed by

the author of the book

(Editions Seuil, 2021) returns to the proximity between the trainer and the young athlete, the murky bond which can bind a champion and the child who l adule.

Is the influence of the coach on young people frequently observed in sports?

It is a phenomenon much more present in sport than in the rest of society, which affects all sports in all countries, and which is more important in high performance sport.

The proximity to the coach is stronger there, the pressure of the result is greater and… the victim has more to lose by talking.

A study by Tine Vertommen published in 2015 on 4,000 underage athletes showed, for example, that 14% of them had experienced some form of sexual violence and that the figure rose to 30% for those who practice high-level sport.

How does this hold manifest?

There are several scenarios that range from sudden rape with threats to extremely slow, intrusive, abusive acts that can last for several years. In this second case, the most frequent, children under influence speak little because they have the impression of being jointly responsible for this sexual violence. Sometimes, this violence may even have been “desired” by the child or teenager, closely linked to the phenomenon of fascination with superstars. The victim can then have the impression of feeling a sexual desire when what she wants is to acquire the knowledge and the performances of the champion. The adult who is in a position of power must, even if he is solicited by the child, resist this request. First because it's the law,but then because this request for affection or sexual relation is biased by a totally unbalanced balance of power. There must be an absolutely watertight partition in sport so that the relationship of power does not authorize a relationship.

Just as a teacher-student relationship is prohibited, should relationships between athletes and coaches be prohibited?

One can imagine rules: coaches who are going through an adventure with one of their athletes - of full age, to be precise - must stop being a coach.

The problem is that today, at the head of sports federations, there are couples born of this kind of coach-coach relationship.

Some couples are happy of course, but this is an example of what to stop allowing.

Powerful men who sleep with young men or young women over whom they have such a hold, it is the most archaic patriarchy there is.

There must be an absolutely watertight partition in sport so that the relationship of power does not authorize a relationship.

"

Is awareness sufficient today?

No, a cultural revolution is necessary for the role of the athlete and his person to become sacred. We don't yell at the athlete, we don't mistreat him, we don't impose punishment exercises on him like doing 500 push-ups or ten extra pelvic lengths and obviously we don't have sex with him. Sexual abuse is part of a larger set of abuse that is exerted on the athlete. The public must demand clean and healthy sport, with children who are well cared for. The athlete is not there to please others, he is there to please himself. This is why this question is complex: putting an end to the hold requires a total change in our relationship to sport.

There is, however, an awareness of the mental health issues that athletes suffer from.

Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles [two ultra-famous sportswomen, second survivor of sexual violence, who gave up major competitions after revealing their mental fragility] were overwhelmingly supported and respected by the public.

It's a beginning.

But we are facing a change which will be very difficult and very long to put in place, but which is necessary.

There is still a big gap between the path that remains to be covered and the one that we are starting to lead.

The root causes that lead to athlete abuse are still there.

Just as the athlete should be sacred, should the coach and the stars be desecrated?

Obviously.

We have to get out of the coach's scheme the hard way, who violates the athlete for his own good.

As Roselyne Bachelot, former Minister of Sports, says in my book: "sport is not ahead of society, it is dragging its feet".

It is the site of far too many archaisms, with a cult of submission, victory at all costs, force and violence ... It is this culture that must be changed to cure sport of its ills.

Our file on Yannick Agnel

Parents also trust coaches or stars in a way too lax.

You couldn't stand such closeness to your child from a piano or math teacher, for example.

Trainers or top athletes who share their rooms with children during competitions, who invite them to sleep at their homes, who go to the cinema together… that's how the grip and then the abuse begin.

Society

Yannick Agnel case: Accused of rape of a minor, the ex-swimmer "recognizes the materiality of the facts", according to the prosecutor

Sport

Yannick Agnel case: "It's more than a shock" for the president of the swimming federation

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