PARIS: Former figure skating star Sarah Abitbol lifted the lid on sexual abuse in sport in France by revealing she was raped by her former coach as a teenager — but says she feels she was “punished” as a result.
Hailed as a “heroine” for having raised awareness, she says she sometimes feels “punished” for speaking out — but insists she would change nothing in her approach to revealing such a harrowing experience.
“If I had to do it again, I would and even earlier,“ Abitbol, a former world bronze medallist, said gently but defiantly, in an interview with AFP.
In January 2020, driven by a deep need to tell her story, Abitbol, who is now 47, released an autobiography entitled “Un si long silence” (Such a long silence) in which she accused her former coach Gilles Beyer of raping her several times from 1990 to 1992 when she was aged between 15 and 17.
Thirty years had passed but her testimony had a dramatic effect, pushing the president of the French Ice Sports Federation, Didier Gailhaguet, to resign.
“This book was my last chance. I was tired of not living normally. You don’t even realise that you have a deep problem anymore because you don’t want to see it and life can pass you by,“ explained Abitbol, who is also a seven-time European medallist in the pairs category.
She made her revelations three years after the start of the #MeToo movement whose effects prompted rapid change from Hollywood to boardrooms across the world.
“In 2020, society was ready to hear. There was media power to hit hard, to save myself from the stranglehold of this and help the next generation.
“More than fifty (sports) federations were affected. It’s terrible but at the same time positive. We had to raise awareness.”
– ‘Just tell my truth’ –
Almost three years later, people come to say “thank you, as a champion who has spoken,“ she said.
“Even 75-year-old grandmothers tell me ‘I was still having nightmares, I saw myself in your book, I noted everything like you’,“ says Abitbol, who kept a small notebook in which she detailed the sexual violence she had been subjected to and which she said she “reopened after 30 years of silence”.
Abitbol now lives most of the time in Miami, Florida and says has regained her zest for life.
“When you wake up in the morning and you have no anxiety, even if there is still a little, you feel better,“ she said.
“You can fly alone, you can go on a training programme, take care of the children while sleeping alone in your room. In a sense you feel that you are beginning to live again.”
She created an association “The voice of Sarah”, to support victims of sexual violence, and accompanies those who wish to file a complaint at the police station.
She is also preparing a programme for the Holiday on Ice skating shows, which are scheduled from February to April 2023. She promises they will be “a message to all victims of violence”.
It was while preparing for those shows that she realised just how shocking and disturbing her words had been for many people in skating.
“When I needed skaters, in certain rinks, to try out, some clubs said: ‘If it’s for Sarah Abitbol, no, we prefer not’.
“It’s a double punishment to have spoken. It’s still complicated when sometimes you also offer your services based on your experience as a high-level champion and at the same time you want to raise awareness,“ she said.
“(We’re told) It’s Sarah Abitbol, it’s the one who talked about all this, who ruined the image of this federation.
“Well yeah!” she says. “But I didn’t want to break anything, I just wanted to tell my truth to improve things for children.
“They have something to blame themselves for? They are afraid? What is going on? This is exactly where I want to go, I want to see what is happening!”
As for the legal consequences concerning her attacker, “its been dragging on for two years”. She urges others to talk.
“My attacker is at home, he goes to the police station once a month, he is not in prison but he can no longer go outside because everyone knows his face.
“For me, he is being punished. But I would prefer him to be in prison.” – AFP
