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French Olympic swimming champion Yannick Agnel will stand trial on charges of raping and sexually assaulting the 13-year-old daughter of his former coach, the Colma prosecutor general’s office said on Thursday.
The Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed that the Investigative Chamber of the Colma Court of Appeal ordered Agnel, 33, to stand trial because he was an adult at the time of the alleged acts. He has 10 days to appeal to France’s highest court.
Agnell was first arrested in December 2021, admitting at the time to having a relationship with an underage girl but denying coercion.
His legal representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The acts were alleged to have occurred in 2016, when the girl was 13 and Agnel was 24, in a number of locations, including the eastern French city of Mulhouse, where the swimmer was training, Rio de Janeiro during the Olympics, Spain and ThailandAccording to French judicial officials.
Agnell won two gold medals at the 2012 London Olympics – the 200m freestyle and the 4x100m freestyle relay – and retired in 2016.
In 2021, France passed a law classifying sex with a child under 15 as rape, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, bringing its criminal code closer to that of many other Western countries.
