Former tennis player Angelique Cauchy spoke in detail about the numerous rapes she suffered from her coach, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2021, News.ro reports with reference to Le Figaro.

Koshy is 36 years old and, by his own admission, he has only been feeling better “since January.” In 1999, at the age of 12, she was number 2 among juniors in France and ended up in the hands of coach Andrew Geddes at the club Sarcelles (Val d’Oise).

“I was raped by my tennis coach almost 400 times in two years,” she told Franceinfo last May.

In July, an investigative commission was created to identify “failures in the work of sports federations, the sports movement and sports management bodies.”

Angelique Cauchy testified before a group of parliamentarians at the Bourbon Palace on Tuesday, September 5. She spoke calmly of the horrific details of what was done to her by Andrew Geddes, who has been jailed for 18 years in 2021 for raping and sexually assaulting four young women aged between 12 and 17.

“I thought about suicide so many times”

“It didn’t even last two or three months,” says Koshy. I said, “No, no, that’s wrong. I don’t want to do that.” He told me, “You know, this happens a lot in the coach-athlete relationship. The former tennis player, who was “petrified” during acts, recalls the dark thoughts that came to her head:

“I had a book with the autographs of PSG players because I went to see them at the Camp de Loge (PSG’s training ground). And between those pieces of paper I wrote, “I can’t take it anymore, it has to end, I’m going to make it stop.” I thought about suicide so many times.”

Like many other victims, Cauchy was taken by her coach to La Baule, where Geddes is from. “It was the worst two weeks of my life,” Koshy says. He raped me three times a day. The first night he asked me to go to his room, but I did not go. So he came to me. It was getting worse and worse. I was a prisoner, I couldn’t leave when I wanted to, and then I had to stay where it happened.”

Trapped, forced, the young girl decided to choose the least bad solution. “It seems crazy the nights after that, but I went there alone and walked the thirteen steps that separated me from his room to be raped,” Koshy continues. Geddes went so far as to tell him that “he had AIDS” and that he “gave him.” “I lived from 13 to 18 years believing I had AIDS,” says the woman, who was tested and found she had never been infected.

“Yes, but he brings us the headlines”

Omerta lasted for years. “It was known in tennis circles that it was not very fair with girls, young girls,” explains Angelique Cauchy. And she recalls what was revealed during the investigation into the Geddes case: “One woman approached the president of the club and said that he had behaved inappropriately with young women, with verbal and physical violence, with ambiguous behavior towards certain players. The president replied: “Yes, but he brings us titles.”

The commission’s report is expected in December 2023. Other people from the sports world are also expected to testify, such as former figure skater Sarah Abitbol, ​​who was also raped by her former coach Gilles Beyer when she was a minor. (News.ro)