The Council of State cuts the pear in half in the Claude-Boxberger case, which tested positive for EPO in 2019. The French Agency for the Fight against Doping (AFLD) had demanded eight years of suspension and had appealed to the Council of State of the Sanctions Committee’s decision to impose a two-year sanction on the sportswoman.
This four-year sanction had been requested by the public rapporteur. The latter had estimated at the hearing that the “special circumstances” raised by the athlete’s defense did not allow the suspension to be reduced. On the other hand, he did not retain the supposed offense of falsification. Indeed, in addition to taking EPO, the AFLD demanded that the athlete also be sanctioned for having falsified elements of the doping control, in particular by influencing the testimony of his ex-trainer and ex-father-in-law. , Alain Flaccus.
He was initially accused of having injected EPO into the athlete during a massage before going back on his confession. The AFLD believed that this witness had been manipulated by the athlete, and had also lied about his geolocation in the days preceding his control.
The AFLD sanctions commission, an independent body, had not followed it on this path, and had been sensitive to the arguments of the defense of Ophélie Claude-Boxberger.
In September 2021, Alain Flaccus, prosecuted by Ophélie Claude-Boxberger for “poisoning”, had been acquitted by the court of Montbéliard (Doubs).