On October 18, 2022, Nina Corradini, former butterfly of the rhythmic gymnastics national team, decides to openly report abuses and violence suffered in her career. One of the biggest scandals in the history of Italian sports erupts.

I always suffered insults, often heavy, regarding my mental abilities or my physical appearance, but the situation worsened when I joined the national rhythmic gymnastics team, the butterflies. In theory, in such an environment, athletes should be treated with greater protection, but it was the opposite. I entered at 15 and had to leave at 18, pushed to the limit in every way. They weighed the gymnasts every morning in underwear in a line, marking the weights in a notebook and humiliating those who gained weight from one day to the next. Often they continued all day making jokes, in front of everyone, saying things like ‘you’re a ball’ or ‘did you see yourself in the mirror?’ and these were the least brutal. I was so desperate to have to fast (I was in the development period) to weigh the same as the day before that I stopped having breakfast, dinner, and even paid attention to how much water I drank, afraid it would increase my weight on the scale. At some point, I was exhausted from 9 hours of daily training and nonexistent nutrition, so I started taking laxatives. I developed a real addiction, for which my intestine no longer worked without it, and I was totally dehydrated. I got sick often, had no more strength, but at least I weighed less. One no longer had an effect on me, so I started taking more and more. I thought about food day and night, and at night I fell asleep crying in a hotel room, hoping never to wake up again. The coaches seemed not to see how bad I was, and they never spared a comment or consideration. One evening I took 4, and the next day I woke up two kilos lighter, very thirsty, and fainted in the hotel breakfast room, I was lifeless, I didn’t want to eat anything, my tests indicated nonexistent iron, but the coaches made me go to the gym anyway, congratulating me on the weight loss. I didn’t know what to do to get out, I had learned the weight of a plate of pasta (which I hadn’t seen for months), a slice of meat, and even a piece of bread. My parents were far away, I saw them rarely, I didn’t know who to talk to get out because I felt wrong, a burden, and so I never did. But I found the courage to leave, go home, and only after months did I tell everything to my friends and my parents. Even today, I often feel anxious eating in front of many people or at the restaurant, but slowly I try to overcome it. Psychological abuse in the world of sports is so strong that no one has the courage to speak, I would like to interrupt, or at least try to, this vicious circle. Thank you for reading.