French Olympic swimming champion Yannick Agnel charged with rape

Yannick Agnel, a 33-year-old former Olympic swimming champion, is accused of forcing a connection in 2016 with his coach’s 13-year-old daughter. On Thursday, the Colmar Court of Appeal denied his appeal, concluding that there was sufficient evidence against him.

Yannick Agnel, a former Olympic swimming champion, will be accused in the Haut-Rhin criminal court of rape and sexual assault on a juvenile; the Colmar Court of Appeal announced on Thursday, January 15, dismissing his appeal.

In May, an investigating judge in Mulhouse ordered the 33-year-old athlete to stand trial in a criminal court. He is suspected of having a connection with his coach’s daughter, who was 13 years old in 2016. Yannick Agnel, who has always claimed that the connection was consensual and passionate, challenged the ruling. However, on Thursday, the court determined that there was sufficient evidence against him.

Thomas Wetterer, the young woman’s lawyer, declined to comment on the ruling at this point. The attorneys for the athlete under investigation have five days to file an appeal with the Court of Cassation.

Yannick Agnel, a former Mulhouse Olympic Natation swimming club member, is accused of rape and sexual abuse between January 1st and August 31st, 2016, against the daughter of his coach, Lionel Horter, with whom he was residing.

The alleged assaults occurred both in Mulhouse and overseas, in Thailand (where the Mulhouse Olympic Natation club often organises training camps) and in Rio de Janeiro, the host city of the 2016 Olympic Games.

The inquiry began in the summer of 2021, following a complaint submitted by the young woman, who was a member of the club at the time but has since stopped swimming. Yannick Agnel was officially charged five months later, on December 11, 2021.

According to Edwige Roux-Morizot, the then-public prosecutor, the swimmer had “acknowledged the material facts of the charges, even if for some rapes he has a memory problem” after forty-eight hours in police detention.

Yannick Agnel, who faces up to twenty years in jail, has consistently denied having any control over the little girl. However, Ms Roux-Morizot believed that the activities constituted “rape and sexual assault due to the age difference” and “genuine moral coercion.”