Yannick Agnel, the French Olympic swimming champion, will stand trial on charges of rape and sexual assault involving the 13-year-old daughter of his former coach, prosecutors in Colmar said.
The prosecutor general’s office in Colmar confirmed that the investigative chamber of the Colmar appeals court ordered Agnel to go on trial, saying the court decided he was an adult at the time of the alleged acts.
Prosecutors said Agnel, 33, has 10 days to appeal the decision to France’s top court, the Court of Cassation.
The AP reported that Agnel was first arrested in December 2021. At the time, he admitted to a relationship with an underage girl but denied coercion, according to the prosecutors’ description of the case.
Judicial officials said the girl was 13 and Agnel was 24 in 2016, when the alleged acts occurred. They said the allegations involve several locations, including the French eastern city of Mulhouse, as well as Rio de Janeiro during the Olympics, Spain and Thailand.
Agnel won two gold medals at the 2012 London Olympics, in the 200-meter freestyle and the 4x100-meter freestyle relay. He retired in 2016.
France passed a law in 2021 that characterizes sex with a child under the age of 15 as rape and makes it punishable by up to 20 years in jail, a change described as bringing France’s penal code closer to those of many other Western nations.
Agnel’s legal representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment, prosecutors said.