Agence Française de Lutte contre le Dopage (AFLD) has filed an attraction with the French Conseil d’Etat (Council of State) in opposition to its Sanctions Fee’s choice at hand down a diminished two-year doping suspension to Marion Sicot. Cyclingnews understands that the AFLD and reporting decide within the case have requested that Sicot obtain the entire four-year ban for returning a optimistic check for EPO in 2019.
Sicot examined optimistic for EPO in a check carried out by the AFLD in June 27, 2019, on the time trial occasion held on the French Championships. She was provisionally suspended on July 18, 2019. Though she initially denied utilizing EPO, she later admitted to buying and utilizing the banned substance in an unique interview with Stade 2 that aired in March 2020.
Sicot requested a diminished suspension from the French anti-doping authorities, alleging that her choice to buy and use EPO occurred after she skilled months of psychological abuse by former Doltcini-Van Eyck staff supervisor Marc Bracke. The UCI Disciplinary Fee later suspended Bracke for 3 years following the highly-publicised sexual harassment case that concerned two feminine cyclists.
The AFLD’s Sanctions Fee mentioned it thought of the harassment case when it determined to droop Sicot for 2 years fairly than 4. It made its announcement on December 16, 2020. Sicot’s lawyer said, at the moment, that it “reveals that it punishes athletes who’ve made errors whereas understanding the context wherein the doping follow occurred.” Sicot’s suspension was supposed to finish on July 19, 2021.
Nonetheless, the AFLD appealed in opposition to its Sanction Fee’s choice in March of 2021 on the French Conseil d’Etat. Below Article L 232-23-3-3 of the sports activities code, it has requested that Sicot obtain a full four-year suspension for utilizing a non-Specified Substance EPO.
It additionally steered that the Sanctions Fee’s use of Article 232-23-3-10 of the sports activities code, which took under consideration the “explicit circumstances of the case” to scale back the sentence, was not sufficiently reasoned. It steered that there isn’t a established hyperlink between the acts of sexual harassment and the taking of EPO, which was used to justify a discount within the sanction.
The choice now rests with the French Conseil d’Etat to uphold Sicot’s preliminary diminished two-year suspension or pronounce sanctions of all the 4 years, which might be one yr longer than Bracke’s suspension.
Anticipating to be free to return to competitors final July, Sicot had begun coaching to compete in triathlons. The biking membership Châteauneuf-sur-Loire has launched a petition title ‘Assist for Marion Sicot’ with greater than 700 signatures as of Wednesday, March 9. Christian Passigny, the president of the membership, mentioned, “[Marion Sicot] needed to get out of it, she had chosen the improper answer, she paid her debt, she tries day-after-day to repay a little bit greater than she has already paid.”
