“I am convinced that there are more than two of us. That there are other victims, "warned in an interview with the Parisian to be published Thursday Catherine Gonseth, former member of the French Alpine ski team who was the victim of sexual assault on the part of a trainer in the 1970s and 1980s.
"For some, it will probably be difficult to speak. By their activity, their social position. They probably won't want to stir it all up. It can take time, ”said Catherine Gonseth, who, with her former teammate Claudine Emonet, denounced the actions of a coach in early February. In this interview, Catherine Gonseth revealed that she was a minor when she was the victim of the first sexual assaults.
"What I can say is that I left the French team at 19, in 1980, that I had been there since 1974. That it started when I was a minor and that he didn’t it was not only once. This man betrayed the trust I was supposed to have in a coach. The consequences of these assaults are carried all your life, especially on moral development. It marks you, ”she said.
"Injustice is in silence because whoever says no word consents"
If she did not discuss these assaults at the time with her family or other officials of the France team ("What he did to me, appeared to be unreal. I the fool myself ”), Catherine Gonseth thinks that others were aware of the actions of the trainer, whose name she cannot give. “I just know that soon after I left the Fed, he became a boy coach. This challenged me. I asked myself the question whether, in high places (at the Federation), some were not more or less aware. Anyway, he was never bothered for his actions. "
She calls on the French Ski Federation (FFS) which has supported the two former skiers from their first testimony to act to "break the omerta in skiing, in sport". “Today it is important, the ski community must assume that, yes, there have been and there may still be problems just like in the other federations. We must stop saying nothing so as not to tarnish the image of our sport, ”urges Catherine Gonseth. “The victims have a name, the attackers must have one too. Acts and legal texts are needed which must be modified, in particular on prescription or defamation. The injustice is in silence because who does not say a word consents ”.
For several weeks, French sport has been plunged into an unprecedented crisis with the multiplication of revelations of scandals of sexual assault, especially in figure skating, which led to the resignation of the president of the French federation of ice sports Didier Gailhaguet , accused of having closed his eyes.
- Sexual violence
- Sexual assault
- Ski
- Sport
- Alpine skiing