Paris (AFP)
The 3000m steeplechase specialist Ophélie Claude-Boxberger, who accuses her stepfather of having doped her without her knowledge, asked the Council of State to lift her provisional suspension for a positive control at EPO in September, learned AFP from a judicial source.
The request will be examined by the judge on summary proceedings on January 3.
The French champion of the 3000 m steeplechase, 31 years old, has been provisionally suspended by the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) since November 4 for a positive test at EPO dated September 18.
Ophélie-Claude Boxberger proclaims her innocence and assures that her stepfather Alain Flaccus, who is part of his sports supervision, would have inoculated him with an injection of EPO without his knowledge, when she had dozed off after a massage. A version also delivered by Alain Flaccus during his police custody.
La Franc-Comtoise lodged a complaint for poisoning with the High Court of Montbéliard (Doubs) on December 17.
Ophélie Claude-Boxberger denounces a "conspiracy", and revealed the painful past that binds him to this man, explaining that he had filed and withdrawn a complaint against him for sexual assault years earlier. Alain Flaccus acted, she said, out of jealousy, the athlete having a relationship with Dr. Jean-Michel Serra, dismissed last week from his post as director of the medical service of the French Athletics Federation (FFA), pinned for this story.
A source familiar with the matter had called for "caution" on this version, citing the hypothesis that Alain Flaccus had made the choice to "sacrifice himself" so that the athlete would avoid a four-year suspension.
The AFLD continues to conduct its investigations prior to any final sanction, as does the Paris Prosecutor's Office, which opened an investigation on October 14.
© 2019 AFP