Rhythmic and mistreatment in the gym From the interrogations the confirmations to the accusations – breaking latest news

They, the alleged victims: a dozen “baby” gymnasts aged between 13 and 15 years. With a sporting career at the highest levels ahead. But also the companions who attended the same gym. Or the moms. All, in essence, would have reiterated the allegations that the deputy prosecutor Alessio Bernardi, owner of the file, hypothesized in the file opened for alleged ill-treatment in the gym after the initial complaint – filed last August with a complaint at the police station – by two girls. To which more have been added month after month. The interrogations before the prosecutor are essentially over: everyone would return the confirmation of a series of abuses and harassments, psychological and physical, that the very young gymnasts would have been forced to suffer in the Nemesi academy in Calcinato where they trained. The obsessive and maniacal control of weight, the “violent” methods, the abnegation and the constraints: a picture, in short, such as to outline and corroborate a picture that would go far beyond the perimeter of rigor and severity set by a practiced sport at national level and, in some cases, not only.

All the gymnasts who have decided to report or who in the end said they were victims would have left the rhythmic, at least for now. And with her the dreams of a medal, to be pursued with commitment and constant effort, but not with a sort of constraint and prostration that would have crossed the limit. At least according to their stories. Only one — rising rhythmic star — who is 15 years old and was among the first two to file a complaint, after a period of “pause” has started again to train somewhere else. But not without difficulty and, above all, it seems also with psychological support.

The story remains very delicate. Also because it is the first case in Italy where an ordinary prosecutor, therefore at a criminal level, opens a file for alleged ill-treatment perpetrated in the sports arena.

Since the prosecutor last week, the leaders of the Italian Gymnastics Federation of Italy were also heard – the president Gherardo Tecchi, the general secretary Roberto Pentrella and the technical commissioner Emanuela Maccarini – summoned as people informed on the facts to clarify and contextualize the modalities of “functioning” of the “structure” and above all the relations with the peripheral gymnasiums, including Brescia: the absence of any interference or pressure from the central headquarters (therefore from the coach to the “colleagues” would have emerged). Therefore, each provincial centre, although affiliated to the FIG – and in the case of Calcinato to other entities – would have full organizational and decision-making autonomy, as also later specified by the Federation itself.

Even the academy in Desio, where Emanuela Maccarani coaches, ended up at the center of the storm after the complaint of two former Farfalle of the national team, but “at the moment there are no elements to proceed with any dispute” said the federal prosecutor Michele Rossetti. The Brescian investigation goes on, it is not excluded that the times are tightened to close the circle.