Take4 weeks ago
The UCI Ethics Commission has confirmed a 10-year ban on Ladislav Demko, former head of performance at Hess Cycling, for psychological abuse. It's the longest and most explicit behavioral sanction the UCI has issued against a coach.
The Commission found Demko isolated a rider he coached and was personally involved with: dictating her messages, threatening her psychologist, and humiliating her publicly on social media after the relationship ended. Investigators used an external trauma-informed specialist to build the case, and the ruling cites Article 2.1 on psychological abuse directly. Demko can still appeal to CAS, but as it stands, this is the case that sets the bar for how cycling governance names and punishes coercive control.
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