Marion Sicot’s complaint against Marc Bracke dismissed

The complaint for sexual harassment of the cyclist suspended for doping Marion Sicot against her former manager Marc Bracke has been closed, announced Friday the public prosecutor of Montargis.

“This is a dismissal for insufficiently characterized offense. (…) There is no intention of sexual harassment on the part of Marc Bracke“, indicated Loïc Abrial to AFP.

“There may have been a misunderstanding related to a limited command of English“, from the manager of the Doltcini-Van Eyck team, during discussions with his cyclist, however specified the magistrate.

In June 2021, the International Cycling Union (UCI) suspended the former Belgian manager for three years for acts of sexual harassment. The Belgian had not been heard by the disciplinary committee.

For her part, the French runner had been suspended for two years for injecting herself with EPO in June 2019, according to a decision by the sanctions commission of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD). This independent commission had then retained the sexual harassment to alleviate the suspension.

In a second step, in January, the Council of State had increased this suspension to four years, following an appeal from the AFLD.

After claiming her innocence, Marion Sicot had admitted, in a Stade 2 report broadcast in 2020, to having injected EPO three days before a race, in the hope of performing and regaining the confidence of her manager. .

She claimed she was kicked from her team in the spring of 2019 after she stopped sending Marc Bracke photos of herself in her underwear.

The cyclist had told her version of the facts in a book entitled “Harassed, doped but back!», published in September 2021.

In another part of the case, the Belgian manager then filed a complaint for defamation. The hearing is scheduled for September 14 before the Montargis court.