Marion Sico has been handed a two-year suspension by Agence Française de Lutte contre le Dopage (AFLD), a decision the sanctioning committee made on December 16, L'Equipe (open in new tab) reported Tuesday.

Sico was provisionally suspended on July 18 after testing positive for EPO at the French time trial championships conducted by AFLD on June 27, 2019. The retroactive suspension will allow Cicotte to return to competition this July.

Sicotte initially denied using EPO, but later admitted to using it in an exclusive interview with "Stade 2" (opens in new tab) that aired last March.

She was banned for four years, but claimed that she made the decision to buy and use EPO after months of psychological abuse by Dorcini Van Eyck's team manager, Marc Bracke, and asked the French anti-doping authorities to reduce her suspension. He requested that the French anti-doping authorities reduce his suspension.

Last March, the UCI Ethics Committee opened an investigation into Dortosini Van Eyck and Bracke after two athletes (Sico and Sarah Youmans) claimed that Bracke had requested photos of them in "panties and bra" and "bikini."

The UCI announced last October that its Ethics Committee had found Bracke guilty of violating the Code of Ethics following formal allegations of harassment by the two female riders.

Cycling News reached out to Bracke and the Dolcini Van Eyck team for comment on Cicotte's allegations. However, neither responded to detailed messages.

The Dolcini Van Eyck team issued a statement acknowledging that Bracke had regularly requested pictures of Cicotte in a bikini after Cicotte's March allegations, but claimed: "This has been common practice for some time and is known to many in the cycling community." He claimed. At the time, the team also accused Cicotto of pretending to be depressed and "using the actual #MeToo-mood" to shorten his doping suspension.

According to L'Equipe, in its decision, the AFLD Sanctioning Committee noted that Bracke "repeatedly imposed humiliating acts with sexual connotations on this 26-year-old athlete, which clearly lacked sporting legitimacy," and that "knowing the precariousness of the young woman's situation and the managerial . could not ignore the fact that he was controlling her because of his duties as a manager, making his sexual harassment all the more inexcusable."

According to L'Equipe, the AFLD also stated that Sico "wanted to escape from such an unhealthy relationship and was therefore more determined to improve and achieve sporting performance (...). It was in these particularly difficult circumstances, which could not be ignored, that Sico decided to resort to doping," he noted.

Sicot's lawyer, Antoine Voorman, said that the AFLD's decision to reduce Sicot's suspension to two years was a result of considering her harassment case and "shows that it punishes athletes who make mistakes while understanding the context in which the doping acts took place."

She stated.