Six years after testing positive for EPO, former French cyclist Marion Sicot has been given a 10-month suspended prison sentence in court for the import and possession of doping products.
Sicot admitted to doping several times between 2016-2019 when her trial began in November last year in Montargis, with her sentencing in court coming after she was already banned from the sport for four years.
The 32-year-old also received a €5000 fine at the conclusion of a long anti-doping process on Wednesday but will not have to go to prison unless she commits another crime during the 10-month period of her suspended sentence.
She originally denied the use of erythropoietin (EPO) after testing positive for the banned substance at the French national championships in 2019 but landed a two-year ban by the Agence Française de Lutte Contre le Dopage (AFLD) after admitting to its use in 2020.
This was then extended to a four-year retroactive ban from the Conseil d'État which lasted until March 2024.
Sicot also admitted to using clenbuterol when she was a pro, most notably riding for the Belgian team Doltcini-Van Eyck Sport in 2019.
"I wasn't doing well, I lacked a lot of self-confidence…To perform at the level I wanted to, I took the easy way out," admitted Sicot of why she doped at the start of the trial in November.
"It's very easy to dope, either you know someone, or you go on the Internet."
A friend of Sicot's similarly received a 10-month suspended sentence at the trial for importing, administering and possessing doping products. A former semi-pro cyclist, he was also fined €10,000.
The third person convicted in the court south of Paris was a 51-year-old doctor suspected of writing prescriptions illegally. He was fined a significantly larger €20,000, alongside receiving a 10-month suspended sentence and a six-month ban from practising medicine.
Sicot was not given her suspended sentence for the use of doping substances as it is not a punishable criminal offence by law, as it is in Germany, but for "trafficking in and possession of such substances."
Her case and Anti-doping violations in France are managed by the Agence Française de Lutte Contre le Dopage (AFLD), an independent body created in 2006 "charged with ensuring that participants in sports do not violate rules regarding doping."
