The Dolcini Van Eyck team issued a scathing rebuttal to Marion Cicotte's allegations this weekend, accusing the French rider of being a liar, feigning depression, and "using the #MeToo mood" to shorten her doping suspension.

The Belgian team admitted that director Marc Bracke regularly requested photos of Sico in a bikini, but insisted: "This has been done before and is known to many in the cycling community."

The Belgian team also claimed that the French team had "used the #MeToo mood to get rid of the French rider.

Cicotte confessed to doping by EPO in an interview on Sunday's "Stade 2" television show, blaming the abuse and mental harassment he says he received at the hands of Bracke for his actions.

"I deserve to be sanctioned, but I want a lighter sentence because of the situation with the sports director. It's not something that the real Marion did," Cicotte said.

Dolcini-Van Eyck began by issuing a statement Tuesday morning in which she admitted that Cicott, who had denied testing positive for a blood booster in June 2019, had used EPO.

"She alone is responsible. This act was nothing more than cheating and lying to her competitors and teammates," she said in a statement.

"For months, Marion has been shouting her innocence on social media and in the press. She was willing to do whatever it took to prove her innocence. Now, however, she has suddenly admitted to using doping. Her "innocence" turned out to be another lie.

"And now, to justify her "mistake," she told the next lie.

The Stud 2 report featured a message exchange between Cicotte and Bracke in which Bracke requested front and back photos of her in a bikini. He asked her to keep them secret and promised to delete them. According to Cicotto, Bracke requested these images every Monday starting in November 2018 to keep track of her weight and said he would not put her on the roster to race without the pictures.

The team confirmed that Bracke had requested the photos until April, when her weight was deemed "acceptable," and claimed that evidence was given that the photos had been removed.

"We have a right to expect a professional attitude from our riders, and coming back overweight after the winter is not exactly what we want, especially if we claim to be riders for climbing. In this situation, sport director Marc Bracke made the mistake (and he admits it) of asking for photos to track the progress of her condition/overweight.

"This used to be normal. Many cycling insiders know this. And it was done far less often than Marion Sico now claims. She has never complained about this, nor has she spoken to other riders or other staff members (including several women, and we try to hire many women on our staff). If she had once said she felt uncomfortable about this, it would never have happened again."

Sicot's complaint followed similar allegations from two other Dolcicini Van Eyck athletes, which triggered an investigation into the team by the UCI. Canadian Maggie Coles-Lister alleged sexual assault by a team assistant in 2017, and American Sarah Youmans filed a formal complaint citing the UCI Code of Ethics: see also Appendix 1 of the UCI Code of Ethics, "Physical and Mental Integrity Protection - Sexual Harassment and Abuse" and filed a formal complaint citing.

"This gave her the inspiration and opportunity to combine her doping confession with the accusations of the sports director, resulting in an interview with Thierry Virdalee at Stud 2.

"The timeline of everything fits perfectly. A sports director's life was sacrificed to save hers. Sporting director Marc Bracke's life was destroyed more than hers.

Similarly, the team accused Cicotte of "fabricating" the psychological tension that led to the decision to purchase and use EPO.

"If I managed to perform, the sporting director would consider me as important as any other female athlete and leave me alone with this persistence," Cicotto told Stud 2. 'I was fed up. I had reached saturation point.

The team said on Tuesday: "No one, really no one, not even the staff or the players, realized that Marion Cicotte was in such a depressive state during that period that she was driven to the point of doping use.

"We believe that this depression, supposedly caused by her sports director, simply did not exist at the time. It was probably "invented" recently for the purpose of giving framework and legitimacy to her admission that she used doping."

The team said it would cooperate with UCI investigators, claiming that the athletes would demonstrate "very high, if not perfect, discipline in the areas of privacy and respect for sexual abuse."

They continued their attacks on Sico, refuting her claims that she was treated differently than other players.

"This is probably Marion Sico's own problem. When she was on the team, she often separated herself from the other riders instead of being part of the team. However, Marion Sico was not a team player, and this may have been difficult for her. In races, she often abandoned the team's strategy and let her team members down."

In the same way, she was not a team player, and she was not a team player at all.

The team concluded its statement with "additional comments," criticizing reporters regarding the Stud 2 investigation and questioning whether there were collaborators in the doping of Cicotte, who allegedly evaded testing on the eve of Le Tour de France's La Course.

.