Leandro Tulia, the former coach of Argentine Olympic sailor Eugenia Bosco, has been arrested in Buenos Aires over claims by the athlete and others that he sexually abused them in their teens.
Legal sources confirmed the arrest with the AFP news agency on Tuesday.
Tulia, 53, was arrested at his home in the capital Monday, near the Olivos Yacht Club where he coached for more than two decades until he was let go over the allegations.
Tulia coached Bosco, 27, who won silver in Paris 2024 in the mixed Nacra 17 event with Mateo Majdalani – one of Argentina's three medals at the Games.
She filed a complaint against Tulia last October, two months after her Olympic success, and in January recounted the alleged abuse in an interview with the daily La Nación.
"I don't know how to explain it, but it's something that happened, that I couldn't control. I was 11 or 12 years old and I put it aside until a few years ago when I realised" what happened, Bosco said.
"I went through a thousand stages of shame, of not accepting it, of thinking that I was to blame. After a while, I put it on the table and said: 'I was a girl, I had no control over this situation,'" she recalled.
The alleged abuse occurred during competition trips, or when Bosco stayed overnight at the yacht club for training.
At the time, she lived in San Pedro, 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Buenos Aires, and Bosco and other underage athlete’s often spent the night at the club, under Tulia's care.
At least six other women, also minors at the time of the alleged events from 2010 to 2013, filed complaints after the interview was published, prosecutor Lida Osores Soler told the AFP news agency in January.
Tulia will be questioned by a magistrate Tuesday, his lawyer Daniel Mazzocchini told AFP, over four complaints.
Mazzocchini has previously said the case would be difficult to prove given the alleged facts date back more than 15 years.
– TIMES/AFP
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