A French middle-distance runner has been handed a six-month ban by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) after putting an internet wager on her buddy to win gold on the 2024 European Athletics Championships in Rome.
In response to French athletics outlet Spe15, Aurore Fleurya two-time French 1,500m champion, positioned a wager on compatriot Alice Finot to win gold within the girls’s 3,000m steeplechase closing in Rome on June 9, 2024. Finot went on to win the race, and Fleury’s wager was paid out. The quantity wagered and the payout haven’t been disclosed.
🚫 In response to Spé15, Aurore Fleury 🇫🇷 is presently suspended for six months for “prohibited sports activities betting” by the AIU!
He’s accused of an internet wager on the victory of Alice Finot 🇫🇷 on the 2024 European Championships.
🔗 – https://t.co/XVAR5B5bS0#Athletics pic.twitter.com/dFrNv4GzlR
— MR.CARTER 🌚 (@NelsonCarterJr) January 26, 2026
Though Fleury didn’t compete on the 2024 European Championships, the AIU appeared to contemplate her relationship with Finot as inside info. Below World Athletics guidelines, any athlete who bets on one other athlete at a sanctioned competitors is taken into account to be in violation of its competitors manipulation rules. The AIU says the foundations are designed to stop conflicts of curiosity and shield the integrity of the game.
The AIU has not but issued a public assertion confirming the ban, but the identical outlet reported that Fleury’s suspension will run till March 2026. Fleury declined to touch upon the case intimately, saying she would look ahead to the AIU’s official case file, which she believes will present additional context.
The 32-year-old has not competed since August 2025, when she ran a private finest of two:02.10 within the 800m.
Fleury’s case is the primary occasion of a observe and area athlete being sanctioned by the AIU for sports activities betting because the group was based in 2017. Whereas there have been previous circumstances of competitors manipulation during the last decade, none have concerned one athlete immediately betting on the end result of one other athlete’s race.
Sports activities betting has grow to be more and more world and accessible, with authorized betting platforms now working in additional than 100 international locations. Most sportsbooks don’t confirm whether or not customers are athletes, coaches or officers, and can typically solely flag an account after unusually giant or suspicious betting exercise.
Though the precise quantity of Fleury’s wager is unknown, it might have needed to be a substantial quantity for the sportsbook to flag the wager.
Excessive-profile betting violations have been much more frequent in workforce sports activities. In 2024, Toronto Raptors ahead Jontay Porter obtained a lifetime ban from the NBA after offering inside info to accomplices, who then positioned bets on his in-game efficiency. The sportsbooks flagged the scheme as a result of irregular betting patterns round a participant who barely performed. The group reportedly earned greater than US$1 million, and Porter later pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal court docket.
