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Jun 15th, 2019
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  1. EKEREN - The Antwerp cycling manager Patrick Van Gansen (54) seems to be getting closer and closer. After three ex-cyclists from his team filed a complaint, another five women accused him of sexually inappropriate behavior in an open letter. The Belgian Cycling Association (KBVB) gives him the compelling advice to step aside. With the American Liz Hatch (39), a ninth rider decides to break the silence. "He only had one goal: getting me to bed." Van Gansen reacts sharply.
  2. "I'm from Texas," says Liz Hatch (39) on the phone. “We, Texan women, have one rule: unlike New Yorkers, we don't kiss men we don't know. I only noticed that Patrick Van Gansen (54), a man I barely knew, wanted nothing more than to kiss, touch or hug me. ”
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  4. In her own words, her stomach turns around with the unfamiliar stories of sexual harassment, verbal aggression and psychological terror that pop up about her former cycling manager. The man she describes as "a slime ball, a sexual predator and half a psychopath." The man who was able to persuade her in 2013 to return from a cycling pension after a year and a half. Via messages and e-mails in which, according to her, he came across as extremely professional and dedicated.
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  6. “He urged to come and live in his house in Ekeren. The place where he also parked other riders, "she says. “After two weeks, I left again.” After, according to the American, an unceasing stream of sexually tinged jokes, attempts at physical contact and failed decoration attempts. “He only had one goal: getting me to bed. But that was beyond my Texan temperament. "
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  8. "Power, verbal aggression and handicaps"
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  10. Hatch, who, after her passage in Belgium, had definitively stopped cycling, describes Van Gansen as particularly clever. “You will not read an untrue word in his official communication with the riders, let alone a sexual message. He works very systematically: gaining trust, abusing his position of power and then becoming pulpable. As a young rider you have to be damn strong in your shoes. And if you refuse, he becomes verbally aggressive. And reproaches follow that you are underperforming in the race. Or that you are too fat. "
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  12. She says he's dangerous. “Why take in young girls? Why do you want to play a cycling manager in a women's sport where you can't get a euro cent? Thanks to the courageous testimonies of Esther Meisels, Sara Mustonen and Chloë Turblin, three women I don't know personally, we finally know why. It's just copy-paste my story. "
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  14. It is difficult for her, she says, that she did not have the courage to sound the alarm herself. “I was not looking for confrontation, I was in a subordinate role and I could not go to something like an ethics committee of the UCI. I am so sorry that I wasn't empowered enough at the time and I didn't stop the creep myself. I suppressed it and forced it away. That was wrong, I now realize. "
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  16. "Man with two faces"
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  18. Earlier in the day, five former Health Mate-Cyclelive ex-riders, including the Flemish Tara Gins, had an open letter circulated in which they accused Van Gansen of (sexual) cross-border behavior. “He is a man with two faces and should no longer be staying with young girls. In addition to extremely amiable verbal, he was also sometimes very aggressive and made derogatory comments about weight. ”
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  20. Tom Van Damme, president of the Belgian Cycling Association (KBVB) said on Wednesday that no complaints have been filed yet - just as they were before the Antwerp court. “But he would better put a step aside until there is clarity about his role.
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  22. "Frustrated talk"
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  24. The Antwerp manager himself reacts sharply to the allegations. He doesn't think about quitting. “My process is made on social media and I am wrong in a storm. With stories that are completely untrue. ”
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  26. Van Gansen admits that he sometimes dared to raise his voice, but furthermore denies any accusation. “I know who those anonymous riders are in that open letter. They are angry because I sent them off because they were not performing. To camouflage their own failures they turn me into a piss pole, a fat bag. And as a man you are powerless. My only mistake? To repeatedly point out to them that they were far too fat. "
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