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Sexual violence in skating: Could Didier Gailhaguet not know?

2020-02-02T20:40:14.048Z


The president of the Federation of ice sports is convened this Monday by the Minister of Sports. He is splashed by several scandals


The sentence is insidiously slipped at the end of a letter, dated February 21, 2000, that Gilles Beyer addressed to the National Technical Director (DTN) of the French Federation of Ice Sports (FFSG), Pierre Montheillet: "I reserve the possibility of expressing myself more completely, since we are there, on each other's past… ”

Words heavy with meaning, which perhaps say a lot about the supposed power of the man who at the time had been accused by parents of having attempted to kiss their 17-year-old daughter. This Monday, at 4 p.m., the president of the FFSG, Didier Gailhaguet, who spent his Sunday at the Boulogne-Billancourt ice rink (Hauts-de-Seine) where an Interclub competition was taking place, will have to explain himself in the Office of the Minister of Sports on rape cases that shake tricolor skating, since the poignant testimony of Sarah Abitbol.

Could the man who has run the Federation with an iron fist since 1998 (with an interruption between 2004 and 2007) and whose resignation of the skater demands resignation, could he ignore the actions of Gilles Beyer? Gailhaguet cannot be resigned by the Minister, but she can force her to take measures and even, in the extreme, withdraw her approval from the Federation.

A first investigation carried out in 2000

Hard to believe if we stick to the report of the general inspection, commissioned in April 2000 by the Minister of Sports at the time Marie-George Buffet, on the actions of Beyer. The investigation follows a handwritten letter from Mr and Mrs C., the parents of a young skater who in July 1999 participated in a course organized by Gilles Beyer's club, the French Volants, in La Roche-sur- Yon (Vendée). They explain that one night, the coach, "alcoholic" sat on their daughter's bed - in the same dormitory where Sarah Abitbol says she was raped for the first time by Beyer, 10 years earlier - and attempted to kiss her. At the time of the facts, the persons in charge of the training course were warned but the report revealed that no one would see fit to speak about it with Gilles Beyer.

Until February 5, 2000 when the parents discovered the matter and decided not to stop there. Heard as part of the investigation by the regional director of youth and sports, Didier Gailhaguet, visibly well informed, tells him another story, always in the context of these - decidedly - strange La Roche-sur-Yon courses . In April 1999, Gilles Beyer shared a bed in a hotel room for one night with A., a 17-year-old skater. This one - now coach… to the Flying French -, always explained that nothing "reprehensible" had happened.

On February 29, 2000, the girl's parents sent a letter to the coach ... to assure him of their support, thanking him for the "sports efforts" that he knew "to share with all these skaters. No doubt proof of the hold that Beyer exercises, capable of inviting Sarah Abitbol's parents to the restaurant between two sexual assaults on their daughter.

"Everyone, at their level, fed the crime"

The report highlights "ambiguous, sometimes provocative relational principles", "often unacceptable behavior" of a Gilles Beyer, "strongly contested by some of his colleagues" and who "tends to abuse alcoholic beverages". And, concerning young skaters, "situations that do not seem to be isolated". The report, made in June 2000, concludes that the maintenance of Beyer, the one Sarah Abitbol nicknamed in his book Mister O (O as rubbish), within the FFSG "is no longer desirable".

A recommendation followed to the letter by Marie-George Buffet at the time, since the coach came out of the body of technical managers ... but not by Didier Gailhaguet, nor by the Flying French. The Parisian club did not remove him from his duties as general delegate until Friday, at the express request of the city of Paris which threatened the club to forbid him access to the ice rink. Just during the investigation Gailhaguet will admit that Beyer, his teenage friend, the one with whom he shared two women, "put himself in a difficult situation". The man in the dark suits - who is not alone in the turmoil since other skaters also accuse two coaches Jean-Roland Racle and Michel Lotz - continued to haunt the rinks.

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“Many people have an interest in remaining silent, insists Sarah Abitbol in her book. To break it is to break years of little arrangements. Politicians have turned a blind eye. Leaders have kept you in place. Coaches have been silent so as not to risk being fired or to protect their own turpitudes. Women coaches put a handkerchief on the crimes of their spouses […]. Everyone, at their level, has nurtured and continues to nurture crime. Perhaps the hour of explanation has finally come.

Source: leparis

All sports articles on 2020-02-02

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