«Mr. O., you were my coach. I had just turned 15. And you raped me. Words by skater Sarah Abitbol who has written a book denouncing her coach, Gilles Beyer . The Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation for rape and sexual assault.
French figure skating slips into a safe crisis: the Minister of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu , summoned the president of the Federation on Monday and asked him to resign. To be contemporary. But Didier Gailhaguet , who has been in office for twenty years, resists.
Sarah Abitbol was 10 times French champion of figure skating in pairs and won several medals in European and world tournaments. In a book that goes on sale Thursday, 'Un si long silence' accuses his coach of raping and sexually assaulting him when he was between 15 and 17 years old. This is, between 1990 and 1992, period covered by the prescription, for which he does not call you by name.
Gilles Beyer (O. in the book) has recognized, in part, the facts in a statement sent to the France Presse Agency: “I acknowledge having had intimate relations with her. Although my memories of the exact circumstances differ from theirs, I am aware that, because of my position and their age at the time, these relationships were in any case inappropriate (...) I am sincerely desolate and my apologies to Sarah Abitbol » .
The skater rejected them and announces a second installment in «the one that will bring to light the responsibility of all those who have covered it up in the club [The Flying Frenchmen] and in the Federation».
Gailhaguet has been leading the French Ice Sports Federation for a long time but was not in the years of aggression. He has been president since 1998 with a parenthesis between 2004 and 2007, when he was suspended by the International Skating Federation for proposing a scam to a referee during the Saint Lake City Olympic Games.
Champion of France in 1974 and 1975, then "exceptional coach" according to one of his pupils, is accused of "untouchable" and "mafia" in anonymous testimonies collected by the French press.
The minister, a swimmer born in Romania and former Olympic medalist under the French flag, summoned the director "in the face of exceptional gravity." In his opinion, he would have protected the denounced coach for what "cannot be exempted from all moral and personal responsibility."
Three hours lasted face to face. The manager complained about not being heard but said he was going to "reflect." In any case, he admits to having made “mistakes but not faults.” He has in his favor that the accused of rape was the subject of an investigation in 2000 on the initiative of another head of the Sports portfolio, Marie George Buffet , communist minister of the Government headed by the socialist Lionel Jospin . According to the federative president there was "cowardice and incompetence." The former minister defended herself by claiming to have suspended the coach even though Justice filed the complaint.
It is not clear how but the case is that Gilles Beyer recovered his license. Although "everyone was aware of their deviations," another former skater, Gwendal Peizerat , told RTL. "Many people kept silent ... and many managers closed their eyes," says Abitbol.
His book has released languages. Thus another former skater, Hélène Godard accuses Beyer of having had sex with her when she was 13 and 14 years old. Anne Bruneteaux and Béatrice Dumur accuse another coach, Michel Lotz , of abusing them when they were 13 years old. Indeed, the silence in French skating has been very long.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more- Romania
- France
AlicanteThe Civil Guard dismantles a dangerous network that trafficked with genetically modified marijuana
CompaniesWhen selling patents to Rolls-Royce
SocietyThe arrival of immigrants raises the resident population in Spain to 47.10 million and compensates for the negative vegetative balance