The pain and disbelief of the volleyball world does not stop for the tragic death of Julia Ituma, the 18-year-old champion of Igor Gorgonzola Novara found dead Thursday morning after falling from the window of her room at the Volley Hotel, where she was staying with the committed team in the second leg of the Champions League. A tragedy on which dark sides continue to weigh, starting with the interlocutor of those nocturnal phone calls which by now it seems clear that they have disturbed her. And then there’s that dramatic video of her, which portrays her at night in the hotel corridor, with her cell phone in her hand and then sitting on the floor for a long time, with her head in her arms.
Last call to friend
From the call log it emerged that in the previous hours he had spoken at length with a boy from Novara, a student of the same private high school who was attending this year after the four-year period at the Ettore Conti industrial technical institute in Milan. In fact, in the following hours, the boy was no longer able to talk to her. And, after several attempts to get back in touch with her, he started reaching out to her teammates. A private message on Instagram to some of them, including Varela Gomez, to get news from Julia, ask for help in getting back in touch with her and express her concern for not having heard her calm.
Yellow on the message sent to the team
The Turkish portal “Hurriyat” revealed that he would send one last message in the team chat, a simple and disturbing “Goodbye”. Version however flatly denied by the club: “No farewell message was sent by Julia, in any form, to teammates, technical staff or management. The rumors according to which third parties, worried about Julia’s condition, contacted some teammates before the tragedy to stay close to her are also to be considered absolutely false”.
Not including Julia’s discomfort
The teammates were destroyed, who decided to entrust their dismay to a joint note: “We would have liked so much for Julia to share her pain with us, because in life as in sport, any obstacle becomes easier to overcome if you face it together , as a team. We can’t understand what happened, we can’t get over it: nothing has ever even hinted that something like this could happen, otherwise we would have intervened in time, supporting each other as we are used to doing whenever any of us were to find ourselves in difficulty”.
This tragedy leaves us feeling helpless
Sister Giovanna Saporiti, president of Igor, also underlines that “today we all feel helpless and defeated, for not having been able to intercept Julia’s discomfort and for not having had the opportunity to intervene in time”. “We know well what this tragedy leaves us and it is the sense of helplessness. I am strongly shaken and as a father, I feel deep pain”, the outburst of the patron Fabio Leonardi. The mother of the player, who arrived in Istanbul in view of the autopsy, rejects the thesis of suicide and the expert work on the mobile phone of the Lombard spiker of Nigerian origins will be fundamental – to whom Alice D’Amato today dedicated the bronze in the all- around at the European Artistic Championships in Antalya – to try and understand what happened. In the meantime, the return of the body to Italy should take place in the next few days, with the funeral scheduled in Milan between Monday afternoon and Tuesday.
The next race has been postponed
In the meantime, as was foreseeable, the Lega Volley Donne has postponed match 1 of the quarter play-offs between Chieri and Novara to April 19 but in all the matches of the weekend, in addition to the minute of silence required by Fipav, the players will take the field with mourning on his arm. In all the arenas a moment will be dedicated to Julia, with a photo projected on the giant screens while on her LEDs there will be an inscription of her in memory of her. The speaker will remember Julia and no music will be played in the systems. “This tragic event now obliges us all to reflect more, to seriously investigate the need to worry about the growth path, first of all personal and then sporting, of the young athletes – underlined Mauro Fabris, president of the Women’s Serie A Volleyball League – This is the main commitment that we assume today in the face of this tragic event. We are all aware that all this is insufficient but we trust that our commitment can reach you wherever you are. Hi Julia.”