Olympic swim champ arrested after sex with a minor
French swimming champion Yannick Agnel has admitted to having sex with a minor, a prosecutor said on Monday.
The 29-year-old, who won two gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics, was arrest at his Paris home last week on suspicion of rape and sexual assault, and taken into police custody.
Agnel “recognises the substance of the allegations against him,” Mulhouse public prosecutor Edwige Roux-Morizot told a press conference, adding the swimmer did not “sense that there was coercion”.
The prosecutor said the facts constituted “rape or sexual assault as there is a big gap in age” between him and the plaintiff, who has been named as Naome Horter: the teenage daughter of Agnel’s swimming coach.
The assault is alleged to have taken place in 2016, when the girl was 13 and Agnel was 24.
During the criminal investigation, the French Swimming Federation (FFN) announced they would also be launching a civil action case.
“The Federation has been informed of the admission by Mr. Agnel of ‘the substance of the allegations of which he is accused’. The decision was officially taken today to become a civil party before the judicial court of Mulhouse in this case, which the Federation deeply deplores.”
Rising to prominence in 2010 after setting a French championship swimming record, Agnel went on to win gold in the 200m freestyle and 4x100m freestyle relay at the London 2012 Olympics.
He went to Rio in 2016 to defend his title, but failed to advance through the heats, and later announced his retirement from swimming.
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