The sporting world has difficulty revealing its secrets. Between broken omerta and continuation of the #MeToo movement, a parliamentary commission of inquiry was launched this summer to shed light on several sex scandals within different federations. Tuesday, September 5, it was the turn of Angélique Cauchy, former number 2 in women’s tennis among juniors, to testify. “I was raped almost 400 times by my tennis coach, for two years”, she said in front of the deputies of the Palais Bourbon, as she had already told Franceinfo last May.
In a calm voice, she recounts the terrible story that linked her to Andrew Gueddes, sentenced in 2021 to eighteen years in prison for rape and sexual assault on four young girls, aged 12 to 17. It all started in 1999. She was then 12 years old and trained at the Sarcelles club, under the guidance of Andrew Gueddes, who would handle her. “It was done in not even two or three months, explains Angélique Cauchy. I told him: “No you mustn’t, it’s not good. I don’t want to.” He said to me: “You know, that often happens in coach/trained relationships”. »
“I took these thirteen steps to get raped”
Some time later, like other victims, Andrew Gueddes took his little protégé to La Baule, where he was from. “It was the worst two weeks of my life. He raped me three times a day. The first night he asked me to go to his room and I didn’t. And so he came into mine. It was worse,” testifies the young woman, still marked by having been “forced to stay in the place where it happened.” “The evenings after, it seems crazy, but I went there on my own, and I took those thirteen steps that separated me from his room to go and get raped. »
At this time, Gueddes even made him believe “that he had AIDS” and that it “had given it to him”. The teenager spent five years afraid of carrying the virus before deciding to take a screening test. “I thought so many times about committing suicide”, confides the one who noted her dark thoughts in “a small notebook with the autographs of the PSG players”. But the omerta is stronger. “In the tennis world, it was known that he was… not correct with girls, young girls,” denounces the former player.
Angélique Cauchy also recalls another testimony, resulting from the investigation against Gueddes: “A single lady had gone to see the president of the club saying that he had inappropriate behavior towards young people with verbal and physical violence, and behavior ambiguous with certain players. The president had replied: “Yes, but he brings us back titles.” » The commission must submit its report by December 2023, after hearing from other victims, such as Sarah Abitbol.