SA sex-case cyclist gets global ban

Cyclist and coach Shaun-Nick Bester – banned by Cycling SA for 15 years after being found guilty of sexual grooming, harassment and abusing two young cyclists – has now been banned from the sport internationally. A Sunday Times report says in a letter dated 23 September, the Switzerland-based Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) informed Bester it had decided to ‘extend the effects of the sanction’ Cycling SA handed down in June this year. The UCI said the transgressions Bester had been found guilty of were provided for in its own rules, to which Bester was bound because he had held a UCI licence. The allegations against him related to two teenage girls he coached during 2018 and 2020. The initial disciplinary hearing took place from May to August 2023. Bester was found guilty of all charges in October 2023. He received a lifetime ban. He appealed, but the appeal panel confirmed his conviction on five charges of misconduct. It upheld his appeal on two charges. The panel, however, said the lifetime ban was too harsh. It amended the sanction to a 15-year ban, followed by a lifelong suspended sentence during which Bester could only be an ordinary recreational member of Cycling SA and only participate in local events.

Bester has subsequently launched an application in the Western Cape High Court to review the appeal panel’s decision. But, according to the Sunday Times, the UCI says that does not matter because the sanction imposed remains in force. ‘The main arguments raised in (Bester’s) formal response against the disciplinary hearing ruling (an incorrect charge sheet, an incorrect assessment of the evidence, a violation of the right to be heard, errors in the ruling) had already been raised before the appeal panel,’ it said. Cycling SA has filed a notice of opposition to Bester’s review application but has yet to file any papers. A date for the hearing of his application will only be set once all the papers have been filed.