Vendée Globe: Clarisse Crémer defends herself against accusations of cheating - "I never cheated!"

The case has been shaking the sailing world since the beginning of the week: one of the participants was initially rumoured to have cheated at the 2020/2021 Vendée Globe. This accusation was made in an anonymous email sent to Jean-Luc Denécheau, President of the French Sailing Federation Fédération Française de Voile (FFVoile). More than a dozen screenshots of a conversation between two sailors are said to prove the alleged fraud.

• Click here for the first YACHT report on the case

The FFVoile president then informed the Vendée Globe race organisers and asked for a jury to be formed to examine the case. The proceedings have begun. Neither the sender of the e-mail nor the accused person were initially known by name. Now the French Imoca sailor Clarisse Crémer has outed herself as the accused in a clearly worded statement. She strongly refutes the allegations circulating.

Clarisse Crémer's rocky road to a second Vendée Globe start

Clarisse Crémer had already caused a worldwide stir at the beginning of 2023 in a public spat with her sponsor at the time, Banque Populaire. At the time, the Frenchwoman drew attention to the fact that the business partner had refused to support its professional sailor, who became a mother in November 2022, on the Vendée Globe 2024/2025 course. The reason given at the time was Clarisse Crémer's lack of mileage qualification and the associated poor Vendée Globe starting prospects as part of a change in the regulations. The case even concerned France's politicians.

• The background to Clarisse Crémer's sacking

Clarisse Crémer later found new support from the team led by British circumnavigator Alex Thomson and a new sponsor in L'Occitane en Provence. Now the 34-year-old Parisian has to fight back in the battle to take part in the 10th Vendée Globe. The twelfth most successful female skipper of the 2020/2021 Vendée Globe is doing so with fierce determination. In a statement published on the social network Facebook on 15 February, among other things, she writes

I never cheated. I never intended to break a rule during this 87-day trip around the world"

"I would like to respond to the latest allegations that have been made against me in recent days. I have learnt of the opening of an investigation by the Fédération Française de Voile, which I had to face during the 2020 Vendée Globe with my husband (Editor: Tanguy Le Turquais).

This exchange took place on my on-board mobile phone, owned by my former team, which I had made accessible to everyone as soon as I arrived on land. I never cheated. I never intended to break a rule during this 87-day trip around the world.

During our conversations, which are mainly intimate, Tanguy never gives me information that I didn't already have. No conversation with him has resulted in me changing my course or making a strategic decision that would have affected my race. I have always made all my performance decisions alone and without support, according to the rules.

Three years after the end of the last Vendée Globe, one can only question the reasons and timing of this anonymous disclosure"

I am outraged by the echo that anonymous messages can have. Without even asking questions about the regulatory basis or context of these messages. I am outraged at how these screenshots have led to hasty and false conclusions that completely overstep the official investigations and are already harming us.

Three years after the end of the last Vendée Globe, one can only question the reasons and timing of this anonymous disclosure. We reserve the right to lodge a complaint if necessary. I am of course at the disposal of the Fédération Française de Voile and the Vendée Globe to analyse our exchanges transparently."

Hope for clarification soon

The case will continue to raise eyebrows for a while until it is resolved. It is to be hoped that the jury appointed by the Vendée Globe will carry out its examination duties thoroughly and swiftly and that the FFVoile will act in accordance with the results of the jury's judgement as soon as possible and put an end to the unfortunate affair with facts. There is no doubt that Clarisse Crémer, a popular sailor beyond France's borders, does not only have friends in her professional world.

Crémer in the video

Here, the best skipper of the 2020/2021 Vendée Globe reported on her return to the Imoca class and her plans after the 2023 Fastnet race in late summer: