We know the Italian rhythmic gymnastics women as “Butterflies”However, the current team has decided to distance itself from this nickname, born in 2004. A decision that came last year and was reiterated at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games due to the “unbearable blush” due to the link with accusations of psychological abuse and mistreatment. addressed to Emanuela Maccarani, national technical director of rhythmic gymnastics and head coach of the national rhythmic gymnastics team.
The decision of the Italian rhythmic gymnastics team
When in January 2023 the captain of the Italian rhythmic gymnastics team, Alessia Maurelli, shared a message in which she declared on behalf of the team that she wanted abandon the nickname “Butterflies”Comments have been flying in support of and against their position.
Because that’s what it was: a way of distancing oneself from the chaos that had unleashed after the serious accusations addressed to coach Emanuela Maccarani by some gymnasts from the International Academy of Desio, where she worked for years.
“The era of ‘Butterflies’ BORN journalistically in August 2004, DIES after 18 years again journalistically in November 2022 – read Maurelli’s post still visible on Instagram -. There the breakup is painful and irreversibleespecially given the unbearable weight of a direct and now inevitable link in the media with violence and abuse that does not reflect our own ideal of freedom. The current and future Italian national rhythmic gymnastics team he will NEVER recognize himself under the nickname BUTTERFLIES AGAIN“. Words accompanied by an iconic image: a blue butterfly with a broken wing, unable to fly.
Reports of abuse in the world of rhythmic gymnastics
Emanuela Maccarani was reinstated as National Technical Director of Rhythmic Gymnastics and Head Coach of the National Rhythmic Gymnastics Team last November, immediately after the closure of the process born amid accusations made against her by some gymnasts.
The coach and his assistant Olga Tishina they had been accused of psychological violence and mistreatment, as Captain Maurelli reiterated in his now historic social post. Too rigid, on the edge of what was acceptable according to what was reported: they would have “adopted training methods that did not comply with the duties of correctness and professionalism by implementing psychological pressures and feel the appearance of some gymnasts eating and psychological disorders” .
All this was born from an investigation by Repubblica, which had already collected the statements of Nina Corradini, Anna Basta and Giulia Galtarossa. They were the ones who had filed complaints before the federal and ordinary courts, revealing the unpublished shadows of a world apparently all glitter and smiles.
The trial, the hearings and, finally, the sentence. Maccarani had been warned and relieved of her duties, only temporarily, and the federal court then ruled that these “offenses” concerning weight and these “insults” were simply the result of “too much affection” towards her athletes. A an event whose echoes are still perceptiblebut eclipsed by the exploits of the Azzurre at the Paris 2024 Olympics: Alessia Maurelli, Martina Centofanti, Agnese Duranti, Daniela Mogurean, Laura Paris with the reserve Alessia Russo, the individualists Sofia Raffaeli and Milena Baldassarri.