The Yannick Agnel affair is far from over. After the revelation of a second potential case of sexual abuse of a minor, the former Olympic swimming champion reacted. confirming information from The Team and by RTLthe public prosecutor’s office in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin) announced last week that a second potential victim had been heard as part of the investigation for “rape and sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor” targeting the swimmer, today 30 years old today.
“Deeply shocked by the media’s treatment of this case, Yannick Agnel deplores this partial and biased presentation of the facts,” he said in a statement from his lawyer, Céline Lasek.
The article in L’Equipe demonstrates, according to her, “that the journalists obviously had access to the current investigation file, from which they do not hesitate to extract selected pieces for the sole purpose of a search for sensationalism”.
On the merits of the case, the swimmer adds that he refuses to “defend himself through the media”. Since the outbreak of the first case in December 2021 and “despite the many inaccuracies and slanders widely relayed, he has always reserved his explanations for the authorities in charge of the investigations”, according to the press release.
When questioned, the public prosecutor of the Republic of Mulhouse, Edwige Roux-Morizot, had specified Thursday that the second potential victim was a “close to the family entourage of Yannick Agnel”. “The examining magistrate did not question Yannick Agnel on the facts raised by auxiliary, he should surely do it during the beginning of the year” 2023, she added. EdwigeRoux-Morizot also said she was “deeply shocked” by the publication “of the entire content of certain minutes emanating directly from the judicial information”.
Yannick Agnel has one of the finest records in French swimming: he was double Olympic champion in London in 2012 in the 200m freestyle and the 4x100m relay, before being crowned world champion in these two disciplines in 2013.