More than 20 figure skating coaches in France have been suspected of crimes of abuse, harassment and sexual violence against teenagers for almost 30 years. An investigation requested by the French Ministry of Sport on the Ice Skating Federation reveals that “the volume of cases identified is indicative of practices and behaviors that have been repeated by generations of coaches”.
The revelations made by some former skaters in February came as a bomb to the world of French figure skating. The cases were made public with Hélène Godard, Anne Bruneteauz and Béatrice Dumur through a report in the sports newspaper “L’Equipe”, in which the former athletes accused the coaches of sexual aggression when they were still minors. Days later, it was the turn of Sarah Abitbol, ten times French national champion in figure skating, to publish her autobiography “Um So Long Silence”, where she said she was sexually abused by trainer Gilles Beyer when she was 15 years old. In the same month, Roxana Maracineanu, French sports minister, asked the Inspectorate-General for Education and Sport for an investigation. The results known this Tuesday, August 4th, do not (almost) let anyone look good in the photograph.
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