Olympic Champion Yannick Agnel to Appear in Court on Rape Charges
French Olympic champion Yannick Agnel has been called to appear in court over charges of rape and sexual abuse of a minor.
Reports out of France indicate this week that the French prosecutor’s office is pursuing criminal charges against Agnel. The Olympian was arrested in 2021, though he professed his innocence of the charges at the time, and was charged in December 2024. Agnel appeared in a court in Mulhouse in 2024 before a judge and his accuser, now 21. Agnel is 32.
L’Equipe reported in January that the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Mulhouse, where Agnel swam at the end of his career, had concluded its investigation (for the second time, after a previous closing in the spring of 2024). The end of the investigation brings a three-month window for a judge to refer the matter to court or dismiss it, which would run through April.
The offenses Agnel are charged of were alleged to have occurred in 2016, when Agnel was swimming at Mulhouse Club Natation. L’Equipe alleges that Agnel entered into a sexual relationship with the daughter of his coach when Agnel was 23 and the daughter was 13. Agnel acknowledged, per L’Equipe a romantic relationship – the legal age of consent in France is 15 – but that the physical aspects of it were limited by their age difference in what the report cites as Agnel “living a moral dilemma.”
Agnel, a native of Nimes, was training for his second Olympics at the time that the relationship took place. He won the gold medal in the men’s 200 freestyle, gold in the 400 free relay and silver in the 800 free relay at the 2012 London Olympics. He earned gold in the World Championships in 2013 in the 200 free and gold in the 400 free at the 2010 European Championships. He retired in the fall of 2016 and was made a Knight of the Legion d’honneur in 2013.
