Skating: Gailhaguet aware of the problems posed by Beyer in 2000

French skating boss Didier Gailhaguet accused former Minister Marie-George Buffet of having allowed coach Gilles Beyer to stay on the circuit in the early 2000s. An administrative investigation, of which AFP has knowledge, shows that he was then aware of the problems posed by this framework, today accused of rape by Sarah Abitbol. In a handwritten letter dated February 8, 2000 and addressed to Didier Gailhaguet, the parents of a young hopeful from Angers were outraged by an episode that had occurred a few months earlier in La Roche-sur-Yon, during an internship of the Parisian club Flying French. La Roche-sur-Yon is also where Sarah Abitbol accuses Gilles Beyer of having raped her for the first time in 1990.

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During the night of July 23 to 24, 1999, denounce the parents of the Angers skater, the trainer, "somewhat impregnated with alcohol", went to the dormitory of their 17-year-old daughter and went sitting on the edge of his bed to talk to him for a long time. He eventually left, not without asking her if he could "kiss her", which she refused. "It would be desirable, not to say essential (...) that this gentleman never again approaches near or far minor adolescent skaters", write the parents to the attention of Didier Gailhaguet, elected head of the federation in September 1998.

Insistent rumors

As for Gilles Beyer, champion of France 1978, he joined the technical staff of the Ministry of Sports in 1982, "without ever ceasing his relations with his club of origin", the French Volants, a stronghold of skating based in Bercy. On April 1, 1999, Beyer also succeeded Gailhaguet as manager of the French figure skating teams. The heart of the high level. The mail is transmitted to the ministry, which decides to open an administrative investigation in April 2000, especially as another episode alerts the cabinet of Marie-George Buffet.

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In April 1999, during another internship, still at La Roche-sur-Yon, Gilles Beyer slept in his hotel room with a 17-year-old skater, on the pretext that the school where she was staying was closed. The adolescent's parents, informed, decide to stop there. The administrative report, dated June 2000, describes a deleterious atmosphere between skating clubs and a very conflicting environment, often trying for young athletes. On February 14, 2000, another coach, Didier Lucine, in bickering with Beyer, alerted Gailhaguet in a letter of "rumors becoming more and more insistent". The two inspectors general, who heard about twenty people, do not raise any other specific episode. Gilles Beyer put the two incidents into perspective, without denying them. Contacted by AFP on Tuesday, Gilles Beyer did not follow up.

"It is now obvious that Mr. Beyer no longer has a place in the federal team"

The two inspectors acknowledge that the federation has already acted, reframing its role. Thus, on April 25, 2000, the DTN sent a new mission letter which confined the trainer to administrative and organizational tasks and which physically linked him to the headquarters of the federation. "It is now evident that Mr. Beyer no longer has a place in the federal team," they conclude, drawing on his "questionable behavior" and his "conflictual relationships". Thus, they recommend that "his PO contract (Olympic preparation) be terminated and that his secondment within the Ministry of Youth and Sports also be terminated". During a transitional period, Gilles Beyer must no longer have "any youth coaching function".

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The detachment ended in March 2001, the sports ministry told AFP. But Beyer remained central to the Flying French for all the years that followed, one of the grievances of the current Minister of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, against Gailhaguet. "He did not stay with the federation, he went back to his home club in which the ministry gave him back a professional card," he counterattacked on Monday. However, Gilles Beyer notably coordinated the gala tours of the France team, a role still hailed by Gailhaguet in minutes of the general assembly in 2014, 2016 or 2018. Until that date, Beyer was also a member of the executive office of the FFSG.

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