A court in Périgueux, France has sentenced amateur French cyclist Cyril Fontayne to 60 hours of community service, after he plead guilty to using mechanical doping during a race last October.
The 43-year-old amateur rider was caught using a motor during a third-category race in the Dordogne region of France, and having already been banned from competition for five years by the FFC, has now also been punished by the criminal justice system.
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.
“There was a sanction, the misdemeanor has been recognized,” Bassons told the French newspaper Le Parisien after Fontayne’s hearing. “Today, we have shown that cheating during a race can lead to a conviction for fraud.”
As well the 60 hours of community service, Fontayne must pay a symbolic €1 in damages to the FFC and a further €88 to the Créon-d’Armagnac cycling club, the organiser of a race in which he used his hidden motor.
“I don’t sell drugs and I didn’t kill a child, I put a motor in my bike,” Fontayne told the French newspaper France Bleu back in October. “I’ll serve as an example but I think it will do good to cycling because I am not the only one doing it.”
