The runner-up of Spain and enduro champion of Catalonia, Ares Masip, has decided to break her silence and denounce an attempted rape by another elite rider during a World Cup event held in Austria. The incident, which occurred last year, took place in the Lleida woman’s motorhome, where the aggressor entered at night.
“I was asleep and I noticed a very strong movement in the motorhome, I opened my eyes and found it inside. I got scared and said ‘what are you doing here?’ He replied that the hotel was very far away and could he stay the night. I told him ‘okay, but just go to sleep,’” Masip recounted this Friday on social media and on 3Cat.
He tried to kiss me, touch me, pull down my pants, rubbing his penis over my body… while he kept telling me that he would rape me.
The jogger stripped naked and attempted to force a sexual encounter. “I told him no, that I was sleeping and I didn’t want to have sex with him. He insisted more and more, he tried to kiss me, touch me, pull down my pants, rubbing his penis over my body…”, says the athlete.
According to Masip, at one point when she wanted to scream, the cyclist covered her mouth and grabbed her arms. “He repeated that he would rape me while he tried to undress me.” Although the attacker eventually left, the impact of the incident has been significant for Masip. “I decided to make it public because it happens a lot more than we think. In the paddocks There are other aggressors,” he says. A decision that was difficult for him to make because they continued to coincide in races. Little by little he became “more aware of the seriousness of the events.” A year later, upon learning that the rider had tried to attack another cyclist, he decided to take legal action. First
He has taken his case to the UCI (International Cycling Union) so that the organization can take action. “For me, what should happen is that they take away his license because this happened in the paddock of a World Cup, in the most top of sport,” he remarks. However, he is not optimistic about punishment at the judicial level.
The incident has influenced his career. One of the reasons why the Andorran-based mountain runner has decided to reduce the number of races is because enduro is a sport whose “environment is very small, a very limited physical place and it is very difficult not to meet someone.” “I have considerably reduced the number of races. I have reduced it for several reasons, but one is so as not to coincide with it,” confesses the Spanish runner-up on three occasions, wanting to visualize a problem that she considers more common than is thought in the sporting field.
I break the silence because I believe in a fairer and safer society. Enough of so much impunity
“I break the silence because I believe that it is possible to build a more just and safer society. Enough of so much impunity,” he concludes in the video.
Read also
#Ares #Masip #Spanish #enduro #runnerup #denounces #attempted #rape #rider
