The huge wave goes back a full year. On December 9, 2021, ex-swimmer Yannick Agnel was taken into police custody on suspicion of rape of a minor under the age of 15. Facts that date back to 2016, when the hero of the London Olympics (three medals) was training in Mulhouse, under the orders of Lionel Horter. A few days later, the public prosecutor of the city of Haut-Rhin declared that the native of Nîmes had “recognized the materiality of the facts”.
And since then, what’s new? Not much apart from the fact that many people in the swimming community were aware of Yannick Agnel’s relationship with his victim, N. Horter, the daughter of his coach, 13 years old at the time of the acts. But new revelations come to relaunch the case this Thursday. The Team obtained several elements of the procedure, including recordings of conversations between the former pool star and his close adviser, Sophie Kamoun. The ex-swimmer converted agent is hyper influential in this microcosm and very close to the defendant.
In these wiretaps, the role of “mother-in-law” as Yannick Agnel calls it, appears cloudy. When he reveals to her that he had had relations prohibited by law, she advises him, for example, to lie. “I think the best line of defense is to say, ‘Another blow from the Horter family.’ You can’t help but deny. There will always be doubt, never proof. »
Another embarrassing passage for the TV consultant, this moment when she questions the version of the victim. “You have nothing to do with your conscience, she was consenting!” […] She’ll have it on her conscience for the rest of her life! Accusing someone of rape when she consented, oh! […] Are you kidding or what? “Not to mention the pressures she evokes towards a swimmer who would have poured out with the police or this conversation with her companion where she minimizes the facts a bit: “Yannick, he still screwed up a bit because he did pee-touch. You don’t do that with a 14-year-old, 13-and-a-half-year-old kid. »
The investigation is still ongoing. Yannick Agnel denies the suspicions of rape and speaks of a consensual relationship. A different version from that of his victim. Wednesday, RTL argued that a second victim of the former swimmer had been heard in Mulhouse.