Paris (AFP)

Omnipotent, Didier Gailhaguet has reigned over the French Ice Sports Federation (FFSG) for 20 years. Nothing and no one stands in the way of the man who is remembered as the man of the Salt Lake Olympics cheating scandal in 2002. He managed to break several dead ends but this time, the skating family is seriously shaken .

. Extremely serious facts

Didier Gailhaguet is not directly targeted but will have to justify himself, Monday before the Minister of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, for having kept in his team Gilles Beyer, struck by a ban on working with minors after an investigation at the beginning of the 2000's.

The same Gilles Beyer who is today implicated by the skater Sarah Abitbol in a book published on Thursday ("Un si long silence", Plon) for rapes and sexual assaults between 1990 and 1992 when she was elderly from 15 to 17 years old. Other former skaters are making similar accusations against Beyer, published Wednesday in L'Equipe and L'Obs. Beyer disputes the facts related.

Gailhaguet has not yet spoken. The FFSG announced Thursday in a press release that it reserved "its first statement to the Minister of Sports". "The Federation will speak on a large number of allegations and inaccuracies appearing in these articles and book concerning in particular the alleged passivity of the Federation," said the press release.

. Gailhaguet, ambitious and skillful president

Gailhaguet, 66, started out as a skater before becoming a coach at 23. In 1985, he discovers Surya Bonaly, which he will lead to five European titles before ending their collaboration in 1992, tired of the conflicts which oppose him to the parents of the girl. He then took command of the French teams and continued his ascent by becoming president of the FFSG in 1998 and member of the Council of the International Skating Federation (ISU). The world opens up to him.

But in 2002, splashed by the case of cheating of the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002 in which he was implicated, he was banned from any international function for 3 years. This did not prevent him from being re-elected that same year with 84.5% of the votes cast at the head of the FFSG.

But in May 2004, it came to an end. Pinned by the Court of Auditors for abuses of management of the FFSG, he must resign from the presidency, forced by his executive office. He does not admit defeat and remains a central figure in French skating by becoming the personal adviser to the star of the Blues, skater Brian Joubert.

In December 2007, he returned to the presidency of the FFSG from the first ballot, taking advantage of the resignation of Claude Ancelet, disowned by a motion of no confidence. In 2010, it was voted with 88% of the votes after having been strongly criticized for its sports management by the Secretary of State for Sports at the time, Rama Yade. In 2014, a ministerial inspection mission was carried out, he maintained his power with 66% of the votes against 2 candidates. In 2018, no one opposes him.

. Multiple cases

The French Federation is him. Didier Gailhaguet, who has exhausted numerous DTNs throughout his terms, is still the one and only man to maneuver. In 2003, a ministerial report mentioned "a personal operating system", established by the president and intervening "constantly in the fields of competence of the DTN". In 2014, the skater Gwendal Peizerat, who is running for the presidency of the FFSG, stigmatizes a "sclerotic" system and speaks of a "president who does not transmit, does not leave room".

Gailhaguet crosses alone the storms that have marked his route for 20 years. The most publicized of the cases is the scandal of Salt Lake City in 2002. A French judge of the figure skating competition (couples) of the JO-2002, Marie-Reine Le Gougne, is convinced to have distorted the result of the competition by assigning a note of convenience to the Russian team. She declares that she acted on the instructions of the president of the FFSG in order to obtain the complacency of the Russians towards the dancing couple Anissina-Peizerat which will be sacred for France. Gailhaguet has always denied it.

Often in conflict with athletes, coaches, pinned down for management problems, Gailhaguet now sees business accumulate. In December 2019, the skater Morgan Cirès was the subject of an investigation by an organization in the United States, suspected of having sent two obscene photos to a 13-year-old girl in late 2017, according to the American newspaper USA Today. In early January, skater Laurine Lecavelier tested positive for cocaine. And since Wednesday, serious accusations of rape and sexual assault against 3 skating coaches, including Beyer, still taint his reign.

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