"It has to stop!" And Beyer, let him be treated, "thunders the young skater's mother. In an interview with L'Équipe published on Wednesday, Sabina Mahamoud, the mother of former champion Nadjma Mahamoud, accused messages ex-trainer Gilles Beyer of blackmail in exchange for lessons for her daughter .
Former coach Gilles Beyer is already accused of rape by skaters Sarah Abitbol and Hélène Godard, who were minors at the time of the events. The first told her story in the book "Un si long silence", published a week ago.
The facts recounted by Sabina Mahamoud date back to the fall of 2017. The caregiver had just transferred her daughter, Nadjma, champion of France juniors in 2014, to the Parisian club of flying French (the club of Gilles Beyer). At the time, the mother could no longer pay the young skater's coach, and sought to replace him.
Obscene messages
It was then that the name of Gilles Beyer was suggested to him. From their first contact, the coach sends obscene messages to him. “I had only seen him in competition, we never even said hello. There, he started sending me obscene messages regularly, ”recalls the caregiver.
After a stormy first meeting, where the coach wanted to try Nadjma's body (then 17 years old), touched her mother's buttocks, and said she regretted "not having seen (her) breasts", Gilles Beyer offered to Sabina Mahamoud to train her daughter for free, in exchange for sexual favors.
"He started sending me obscene messages almost every day," says Sabina Mahamoud. "[…] This is where he made this proposal: You sleep with me and you pay nothing and I bring your daughter up to high level ... I felt very bad. I wanted my daughter's success but not at that price. He knew that I had few means, he wanted to take advantage of the situation. I felt humiliated. "
"It lasted for weeks"
In the messages, Gilles Beyer also commented on Nadjma's physique, or asked if she was still a virgin. He also proposed to Sabina Mahamoud to "sleep" with her and her two daughters.
A testimony confirmed by Nadjma. "I knew he was also proposing that it be me," she tells L'Équipe. " I was shocked. That's why I left the club a few days later. The newspaper L'Équipe claims to have read these messages, which corroborate the version of Sabina Mahamoud.
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For her part, the mother of the skater says that she had only polite responses to the coach. "It lasted for weeks. I answered sometimes, but just a polite answer, I did everything to dodge it but without it harming my daughter because she was happy to skate, "she explains.
"I wouldn't have skated because of this story"
"Disgusted" from the middle, Nadjma Mahamoud explains that she decided to stop skating shortly after this episode of harassment. “I forfeited to the French Championships. I was injured but anyway, I would not have skated because of this story, ”explains the young woman, now 20 years old. While waiting to become a coach, she works in Haute-Savoie, as an order preparer.
This heavy testimony is added to the numerous accusations of sexual violence brought to light since the publication of Sarah Abitbol's book, both on Gilles Beyer, but also, more broadly, in the world of skating. The former coach had admitted to having had "inappropriate relations" with Sarah Abitbol, who was between 15 and 17 years old at the time of the facts.
Following these revelations, Minister of Sports Roxana Maracineanu asked the president of the Federation of Ice Sports (FFSG), Didier Gailhaguet, to resign. Suspected of having kept silent on these facts, the leader strongly defended himself in a press conference given on Wednesday.
