A former French skilled bike owner was once issued a 10-month suspended jail sentence and a €5,000 (£4,230 / $5,209) advantageous in a doping trial on Wednesday.
Marion Sicot, who competed between 2013 and 2019 and represented the nationwide squad, examined certain for erythropoietin (EPO) in 2019. She was once first of all banned following the anti-doping regulate, and has now been sentenced in court docket for the import and ownership of doping merchandise.
The 32-year-old’s suspended sentence way she is not going to move to jail until she commits every other crime within the subsequent 10 months.
Sicot’s trial started in November and happened in Montargis, south of Paris. All the way through the lawsuits, the court docket heard that she had taken prohibited elements, particularly EPO and the fat-burning drug clenbuterol, between 2016 and 2019, all the way through which period she rode for Belgian UCI workforce Dotcini-Van Eyck Recreation.
Her certain EPO check got here after the French Nationwide Street Championships in 2019, the place she completed 9th. Sicot firstly denied the usage of the drug, and won a discounted two-year ban. This was once later prolonged to the overall four-year time period, which lasted till March 2024.
All the way through her trial, Sicot spoke of the “ease” with which she was once ready to take banned elements. She additionally mentioned that doping shaped “an integral part of this sport”, even though she skilled “no personal gain” in her occupation.
“I regret cheating and lying. I dirtied my sport,” she mentioned. “I took the easy way out.”
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Anti-doping in France is controlled through the unbiased frame Agence Française de Lutte Contre le Dopage (AFLD). In step with the rustic’s regulation, use of doping elements isn’t a punishable offence, however the trafficking and ownership of such elements is.
Regulations are stricter in the United States, the place use of performance-enhancing medicine could also be punishable. In the United Kingdom, doping in game isn’t a illegal activity.
Sicot was once given a one-year suspended sentence on Wednesday, backdated two months to the start of her trial in November.
Additionally convicted within the case was once a chum of the Frenchwoman, a former semi-pro bike owner accused of uploading and possessing doping merchandise. He won a 10-month suspended jail sentence and a €10,000 (£8,460 / $10,418) advantageous.
A 51-year-old physician suspected of forging prescriptions likewise stood trial. He, too, was once given a 10-month suspended jail sentence, a heavier advantageous of €20,000 (£16,920 / $20,836), and a six-month ban from working towards drugs.
