Two years ago, the Nantes figure skating champion, Sarah Abitbol, revealed in a book the rapes and attacks suffered when she was 15 years old. His attacker: his trainer. The case had caused a wave of revelations, and an awareness of the frequency of sexual abuse in sport, sometimes covered by the federations.
December 2020, Sarah Abitbol releases “Un si long silence”. it is a deflagration in the sporting world. She breaks a taboo there.
In this book, she recounts, for the very first time, the rapes and sexual assaults imposed by her coach in the 90s, when the Nantes skater was barely 15 years old.
” My first motivation was, “this book is my last chance to be heard”, because I spoke several times (…) but I always had the door which closed, therefore, for me, this book was my last chance to be heard, I said “let’s go, let’s get started and either it passes or it breaks” explains the young woman.
And also I felt like an accomplice of my attacker somewhere because he was still in place and I couldn’t bear that anymore.
Sarah Abitbol, figure skater
In the months following the publication of his testimony, his former trainer
will be removed from office. The president of the French ice sports federation will resign…
For two years, following the speeches of Sarah Abitbol, a crisis unit at the Ministry of Youth and Sports will collect more than 800 testimonies.
A kind of “#metoo” of sport.
Some of these athletes, who speak today, had they already tried to alert, like Sarah Abitbol in her time?
In Corcoué-sur-Logne, south of Nantes, the Michel Mérel affair is almost emblematic.
In 2018, this leader of a motocross club was convicted of rape and sexual assault. During the trial, one of the victims realized in court that the French federation knew.
Marie bears witness to her ordeal, her face is concealed, shame has not yet changed sides.
They knew about it in January 2011, I was a victim until March 2011
Marie, victim of her Motocross trainer
“I had been a victim of sexual assault before, except that in fact, in the last moments, it was motocross courses that I was doing almost every weekend, and I was the victim of assault sexual practically every weekend”.
So between January 2011 and March 2011, I could have been spared some sexual assaults, which were getting more and more
Following Michel Mérel’s trial, the young woman filed a new complaint, this time against the federation, a first in France.
The complaint is still under investigation, but could set a precedent.
The phenomenon of maintained coaches, despite doubts or alerts, Pierre-Emmanuel Luneau-Daurignac, investigative journalist, knows it well.
For several years, he investigated the system that allows sexual abuse to continue in sports circles.
The coach is in a position of omnipotence in relation to young athletes and it is even stronger when you go up to the top level. Why ? Because the child has everything to lose by opposing him.
Pierre-Emmanuel Luneau-Daurignac
“He risks not being believed, he will be ejected from the club, he will also disappoint his parents who have transmitted to the coach a kind of delegation of authority. We know that there are still a lot of clubs in which the coach says, “if you could not come to attend training, it would still be better”… Why? “
Gradually, however, some things are changing.
Since 2019, this football club in the heart of the Mauges has displayed the charter of the Colosse aux Pieds d’Argile association, in particular to prevent sexual abuse. A decision made in 2019.
Last November, a club coach also underwent training.
Common sense advice, but which allows you to think about ways to establish a climate of trust and security.
He mentions in particular the fact that when the children go to the showers, the adults leave them alone, so that there is “as little risk as possible”.
Since September, all sports federations can also subject their sports leaders, professional or voluntary, to automatic criminal record checks.
However, this procedure suffers from a lack of communication.
When our team shot this report, this club had not heard of it.