Paris (AFP)

"I was stunned": Frederic Magné, dismissed with a roar of his position of director of the World Cycling Center (CMC), rejects Tuesday to the AFP all charges - discrimination up to racism, harassment and abuse of social good - which he considers "totally unjustified".

"I have the feeling that it is a plot and that some people want to harm me," defends the former track champion who explained point by point on Tuesday, the three areas of the record Indictment revealed on November 4 by AFP and fed by twenty testimonies, all anonymous, former athletes and employees.

Frederic Magné, 50, was fired by the Union Cyclisme Internationale (UCI), which declared on November 5 to have collected "serious" elements.

The former rider refutes in particular any discrimination against certain athletes as he has been accused. "I have been working for twenty years with the whole world", reminds AFP the French, at work in the early 2000s during the creation in Aigle (Switzerland) of the CMC which aims to help young runners from less developed countries in cycling. "I have been careful that all cultures, all continents, are represented and at no time have I discriminated."

"Outraged" by the accusation of racism, the former champion insists: "I am talking about different cultures, different skin colors, different continents, I have always tried to really take care of the athletes who were at home. was the essence of my mission. "

- The support of black or mixed race athletes -

On this point, Magné received support from his former Black or Métis athletes. "Never, he had a gesture, a sentence, an attitude that could have suggested that he was racist," summarized the Eritrean Merhawi Kudus (Astana), on the same line as Natnael Berhane (Cofidis) or still the Cuban sprinter Lisandra Guerra, all quoted by the newspaper L'Equipe in an investigation published last Saturday.

About the Muslim religion, Magné is keen to detail: "With racism, it is the part of the accusations that hurts me the most.I was accused of food while I went out of my way to we could buy food for Muslims in France that we could not have in Switzerland When the Qatar team came in full Ramadan, I shifted the training, against the advice of some coaches, so that the athletes train at the end of the day. "

Asked about the allegations of harassment, Magné, who has been the head of the CMC since 2009 under three different UCI presidents, replies: "I think I was a demanding and whole boss, and I always hate injustice. It's no secret that I'm a blood, so maybe I got carried away, I hurt people. "

"According to what we read in the campaign of slander in the press," he admits, people obviously had a problem with me and that, I did not realize it ".

- "A hard boss" -

He concedes to be "a tough boss". "But extremely human and fair," he adds, recalling the sporting success of the CMC: "You must not hide your face, when you train high-level athletes, it's demanding. was not up to stay at the CMC, it was my duty not to keep it but to steer it in our other host structures.For the institution I represented, I prefer to give a chance to another athlete is the very foundation of my work. "

As for the employees of the CMC, over whom he allegedly abused his power, Magné replies, "It's a joke, a mechanic from the CMC came to my home outside of his work schedule. he was paid, just as anyone can be paid, it was also said that employees were going to pick up my children from school, it was indeed one of my collaborators, but a close friend, who went to get my daughter four or five times while I was stuck in a meeting. "

The former champion also refutes the charge of gifts, bikes from the CMC: "The bikes have never been offered, everything has been charged.The only gift, under the approval of the president of the CMC, is for Brian Cookson (UCI President from 2013 to 2017) who had a track bike this year to do the Masters World Championships. "

"When I hear of terror, of reprisals, I am stunned," he concludes, "if there is such a behavior of a director-general, it does not take ten years to realize it. , my evaluations are irreproachable.

On 5 November, the UCI declared that it had collected information and testimonies "revealing serious facts" behind the dismissal of Magné and announced the introduction of "new measures guaranteeing the well-being of employees and trainees "from the CMC.

© 2019 AFP