Sawt Falasteen - Abuse scandal returns to haunt the flying 'butterflies' of Italian gymnastics

Corradini was, alongside double world champion Anna Basta, the first Italian gymnast to make public in October 2022 claims of abuse within the national set-up.

Basta said she had twice thought about killing herself, while Corradini herself quit the national team in 2021 after spending "every minute of the previous few months wishing I could escape".

Among other gymnasts who later made similar claims was Giulia Galtarossa, now 33 and world champion in 2009 and 2010, said she was berated by a coaching assistant for eating a pear, and handed her diet sheet with the message "we have a little piggy in the squad".

The affair seemed to have been closed in September 2023 when head coach Emanuela Maccarani was given a simple warning by the disciplinary tribunal of the country's gymnastics federation (FGI) and handed back the reins of the national team, nicknamed the "Butterflies".

But late last month the FGI, under new president Andrea Facci, sacked Maccarani, who has led Italy to the top of a sport traditionally dominated by countries from the former Soviet bloc.

The FGI's official explanation to AFP for her dismissal was that the organisation wanted to "open a new cycle in preparation for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics".

But Corradini, silver medallist at the 2017 junior European Championships, is doubtful about the reasons given for Maccarani losing a job she had done with great success for nearly three decades.

"I think that everything Anna and I did played a part," she tells AFP.

"I'm pleased, not for any vengeful reasons, but because it means the young athletes now coming through to the national team will have a different experience to me."

For 29 years Maccarani reigned supreme at the Italian team's National Training Centre in Desio, not far from Milan, where she imposed a rigid regime in which days began with gymnasts being weighed in front of one another.

Maccarani and her assistant Olga Tishina insulted those who put on weight, calling them "pigs" and provoking eating disorders and suicidal thoughts in athletes who were barely out of childhood and often living far away from their families.

- Wiretap evidence -

"It was a bit like living in a bubble. Everything that happens to you seems normal. You're alone in this bubble -- that's all there is, and you don't see any way out," said Corradini, now 21 and a psychology student.

"It took me several months after I returned home to tell my parents about everything that happened."

Following Corradini, Basta and Galtarossa's allegations, prosecutors in Monza opened an investigation in which wiretaps were ordered for both FGI officials and the national team's management.

The subsequent 356-page report, seen by AFP, includes conversations between coaches mocking athletes and sexist remarks about a gymnast from both former FGI president Gherardo Tecchi and his successor Facci.

Extracts from these wiretaps published by the Gazzetta Dello Sport at the end of March featured Tishina criticising another coach, Julieta Cantaluppi, for apparently both forcing gymnasts to removing clothing "right down to their knickers" and locking them in a small, cold room if they made mistakes during training.

"I worked for four years with Julieta and none of that is true. She has nothing to do with Maccarani," Corradini insists.

The warning given to Maccarani was called "a total failure" by Daniela Simonetti, the founder of ChangeTheGame, an association that combats physical and psychological abuse in sport.

"What we have is an image of a federation where everyone looked out for one another and gave each other a helping had, starting with the former president," said Simonetti.

"We need to start again from scratch."

Corradini is in agreement: "If a girl has a psychological problem, she should see a psychologist. If she has a weight problem then she should see a nutritionist.

"Coaches don't know everything and need to learn to delegate responsibilities with people with more knowledge than them."

Z.AlNajjar--SF-PST