Two riders competing for the Olympic Games at the Lisieux court on January 18, 2024. The Norman Kevin Staut and his former partner, the Norwegian Marie Valdar Longem appeared for willful violence, after a heated argument on the night of February 2 to 3, 2023 , in Bordeaux.
The two athletes accuse each other.
This Thursday, at the bar, the debates were fueled to try to resolve this closed session, on the sidelines of a competition "to which I accompanied Kevin because it was an opportunity to see each other", says the Scandinavian, alongside an interpreter.
This February 2, Kevin Staut is invited to a gala evening.
He warns his partner that he “will only have a little time for her during the evening and that she can stay at the hotel if she prefers”.
Marie Valdar Longem finally comes.
She confided in court: “I felt like I shouldn’t be there.”
The return turns into an argument against a backdrop of jealousy, which continues in the room of a Bordeaux hotel.
The Norwegian suspects infidelity on the part of her companion.
He decides to go and sleep on the sofa.
Marie Valdar Longem admits to having taken advantage of her sleep to take her phone, guess the code, and “see messages from other women”.
“I ended up deciding to wake him up to confront him,” she says on the stand.
He was disrespectful to me and I wanted an explanation.”
Conflicting versions
It is from there that the stories diverge.
Marie Valdar Longem speaks of a calm awakening where Kevin Staut says he was awakened from sleep “by the pain in [his] left knee.
She jumped on me.”
However, the rider drags a fragility on the said knee.
The next day, he will receive treatment and, a few days later, an MRI will confirm signs of a “recent shock”.
The rider then says he wants the room as quickly as possible and asks his partner to give him back his phone, who refuses.
“She pushed me back against the wall.
I take the phone from her hands, she follows the movement when I stand up and bumps against my forehead, the shock causing a slight nosebleed.
This version is contested by the Norwegian rider.
“I didn’t push him intentionally.
He was angry, she says.
I had never seen him like that.
He stood up to grab the phone aggressively.
He pinned his arms and headbutted me.
I have no memory of the moment immediately after.
I was very afraid ".
She leaves the room and contacts a friend.
Marie Valdar Longem refuses police intervention, saying she is in shock and fearing finding herself in difficulty because of the language barrier.
She filed a complaint in Norway the next day.
Kevin Staut took his case to French justice on February 9.
Awareness course on domestic and gender-based violence
The defense of the Olympic champion in Rio in 2016 emphasizes that his ex-partner showed “no trace of a headbutt.
Just a little bleeding, no bruising.
No one denies the shock, but to speak of a violent head-butt is a lie.”
He is portrayed as a “calm, cool-headed man who flees conflict”.
The certificate from rider Pénélope Leprévost, former companion of Kevin Staut, also rules out a history of violence.
“As if Marie had come to hit Mr. Staut’s forehead.
It's a headbutt.
And he left the room when he saw her bleeding,” argues the Norwegian’s lawyer.
The prosecutor requires an educational sentence for each with an awareness course on domestic and gender-based violence and asks the judge “not to take the Olympic Games into account, because they are litigants like any other”.
Because in the background of this trial, we find Paris 2024. While the two riders hope for a selection, what would be the consequences of a conviction.
Leaving the court, Kevin Staut confides in any case “wanting to talk about sport again” after “a case that has dragged on for 11 months”.
A little more patience and uncertainty will be required: the judgment is reserved until February 22.