An amateur cyclist in France who was found using a hidden motor at a race has been sentenced for fraud and attempted fraud by a criminal court.
Yesterday, Cyril Fontayne, aged 43 and a plasterer by trade was sentenced to 60 hours’ community service at the Périgueux criminal court after admitting the charges, reports Ouest France.
He had already been banned from holding a racing licence for five years by the French cycling federation (FFC), which under yesterday’s ruling received symbolic damages of 1 euro.
The rider was targeted by France’s national anti-doping agency, the Agence française de lutte contre le dopage (AFLD) after a dramatic improvement in his results.
He was caught in October in the Dordogne as he drove home from the Category 3 Grand Prix de Saint-Michel-de-Double race, organised by his club, SA Mussidan.
Fontayne had been leading the race when he abandoned due to a puncture and was chased down by the AFLD’s regional representative, the former pro cyclist Christophe Bassons, who found the hidden motor.
Bassons revealed at the time that the motor was a Vivax Assist, which the cyclist had bought online and installed on his bike.
After yesterday’s hearing, Bassons said: “Today, it has been shown that cheating during a race can lead to a conviction for fraud."
Fontayne was also told to pay 88 euro to the Créon-d’Armagnac cycling club, organisers of another race in which he used the banned technology.
It’s the third case involving the discovery of a concealed motor in competition, and the first in France.
In August last year, an amateur cyclist in Italy was found using a hidden motor.
The most significant case so far involved one found in a bike belonging to under-23 Belgian rider Femke Van den Driessche at the UCI World Cyclo-cross Championships in 2016.
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.