Paris (AFP)

The date of the hearing is not yet known, but Ophélie Claude-Boxberger, at the heart of an incredible doping case at the EPO, may try to convince the French Agency's sanctions commission in good faith to combat doping (AFLD) to avoid a four-year suspension.

His file was recently transmitted to the sanctions committee of the AFLD, AFP learned from concordant sources.

"The sanctions committee has been seized" by the college of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) "and we must communicate our memory soon", confirmed to AFP the athlete's lawyer, Laurent Clauzon, without delivering other details.

No hearing date has yet been released.

The 3,000 m steeplechase specialist was suspended on November 4, 2019, after a doping control test of September 18, at her home in Montbéliard (Doubs), revealed the presence of erythropoietin (EPO) in her two blood samples and of urine.

But during a spectacular twist at the end of November, the one who assisted him in its preparation, Alain Flaccus, also his mother's companion, accused himself in police custody of having inoculated him with a dose of EPO without his knowledge on 12 September during an altitude training course at Font-Romeu, two weeks before the Doha Worlds, where the Frenchwoman participated without shining.

At the heart of a tormented family history, Claude-Boxberger had then explained that, years before, he had denounced, without filing a complaint, acts of sexual assault against Alain Flaccus, then coach in his club which became the Montbéliard Belfort Athletics (MBA). Since her confession, she has this time filed a complaint for poisoning.

- Jealousy -

In his only interview, at l'Est Républicain, Alain Flaccus said that he took advantage of the fact that the athlete was asleep during a massage to give him a subcutaneous injection. An act according to him guided by his jealousy towards Dr. Jean-Claude Serra, doctor of the French team, with whom the half-cross-country girl maintains a sentimental relationship, hoping that the woes of the athlete would reflect on the doctor, since licensed by the federation.

Alain Flaccus reiterated this version in front of the AFLD college during a hearing at the end of January, where all the protagonists, in particular the athlete, his mother and Dr Serra, were heard.

According to a source familiar with the matter, the referral of Ophélie Claude-Boxberger to the sanctions committee does not prejudge the final result.

More than a year from the Tokyo Olympics postponed to the summer of 2021, the daughter of the founder Jacky Boxberger faces four years of suspension. But the world anti-doping code provides that the period of suspension can be eliminated if the sportsman establishes "the absence of fault or negligence on his part", or reduced, in the event of absence of fault or "significant" negligence.

The defense of the athlete highlights the profile of Alain Flaccus, who had already had an argument over a decade ago with a former companion of Ophélie Claude-Boxberger.

"Ophélie is checked at each return from an internship at Font Romeu. She would have had no interest in taking EPO, it was really playing Russian roulette", explained to AFP in early March, his lawyer .

A year before his positive control, a first episode had alerted the AFLD, when Dr Serra had contacted the agency about Ophélie Claude-Boxberger without informing his federation. He then wondered about the number of doping controls she underwent and worried about her fragility.

© 2020 AFP