Paris (AFP)

No miracle for Clemence Calvin: the French athlete was sentenced to four years suspension in the incredible drug control case she is accused of fled on March 27 in Marrakech, but she immediately announced that she would do appeal to the Council of State.

Unless there is a turnaround in this jurisdiction, the 2018 European Vice-Champion of the marathon will be deprived of the Tokyo Olympics and the European Championships in Paris next summer, after having missed the 2019 World Championships. Doha.

At 29, the duration of the sanction puts a question mark on his career.

"It's not over (...) I trust a real independent justice," said Clemency Calvin to AFP, which she announced Wednesday night suspension.

According to her, the sanctions commission of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD), which pronounced the maximum sanction for this type of offense, is "neither objective nor impartial".

On November 20, the French woman had come to plead her case in front of her twelve members, during a hearing in the river, behind closed doors, where she had reiterated her version. Calvin denies having sought to flee an anti-doping test but portrays himself as the victim of a strange trio that does not respect any procedure. "They seized me by the arm they told me + French police, where is Dahmani +?", She said, accusing the director of controls AFLD, Damien Ressiot.

But the sworn agents of the French anti-doping, including one of his most experienced samplers, Dr. Olivier Grondin, delivered a completely different version. This March 27, Clemence Calvin was in the sights of the AFLD, who had ordered an exceptional mission abroad to control it before the Paris Marathon of 19 April.

- black sequence -

Notified in the street by the agents, she then asked to walk to a gym to join her husband and coach Samir Dahmani, to give him his child. But once there, she escaped, helped by her spouse, who obstructed physically, according to the AFLD. For this other offense, Dahmani also received four years of suspension.

A team from Stage 2 had collected anonymous testimony from the gym manager assuring Calvin and the controllers had gone well, accrediting the version of the AFLD. The report, broadcast on April 28, was viewed at the November 20 hearing.

"A barbouzerie," denounced the marathoner, who also argues that there are "inconsistencies" between the testimony of the three controllers, even if they all accuse him of having escaped control.

Despite denials, the case casts a shadow over the performance of the French and its successful transition from middle distance racing road. The silver medalist in the 10,000m at the 2014 European Championships (Zurich), had hit a big blow in Berlin in the summer of 2018, ranking 2nd in the marathon for her first on the distance, after a long period of stopping due to the birth of his son in 2017 and then to health problems.

The Calvin case ushered in a black series for French athletics and put the French federation (FFA) in difficulty on the sensitive issue of anti-doping.

Tricolor athletics has been shaken by two other cases since. First that the European champion of the 10,000 m (2018) Morhad Amdouni, implicated by a report from the German ARD, which revealed exchanges on the WhatsApp messaging where he is claimed payments for the EPO. Amdouni firmly rejected these accusations.

Then there was the revelation of the positive control at the EPO of the specialist of the 3,000 m steeplechase Claude-Boxberger Ophelie, a case which experienced a spectacular rebound with the confessions of his father-in-law, who accused himself of him have inoculated erythropoietin without his knowledge, by a sting during his sleep.

This issue is all the more embarrassing for the FFA it involves his medical director Jean-Michel Serra, now on the sidelines, with whom the athlete has a relationship sentimental. However, the doctor had been pinned in June for worrying AFLD about the number of tests his protege had undergone.

© 2019 AFP