For years, they forced her to smile. Always and no matter what, despite the living hell inside her, the day-in, day-out humiliations, the insults, and the tears swallowed behind closed doors in front of coaches and teammates.
"On the competition floor, you always smile. You have to. It’s part of a discipline that shows zero tolerance even for the smallest mistake," explains Nina Corradini.
The former rhythmic gymnastics champion, alongside national teammate Anna Basta, blew the lid off the most embarrassing abuse scandal in recent history.
"Every single morning, we were forced to step on the scale in front of everyone. Gaining even two or three hundred grams was enough for them to tear us apart. ‘Your backside looks like a pandoro cake; you’re getting fat; you aren’t allowed to eat or drink anything,’" Corradini wrote in her memoir, aptly titled Sorridendo sempre (Always Smiling, Rizzoli).
Nina, Anna, and all the others dreamed of becoming Farfalle Azzurre—the "Blue Butterflies" (the popular nickname for the Italian national rhythmic gymnastics team)—those iconic gymnasts who conquer the world with a grace and acrobatic mastery that seem to defy the laws of physics.
They hung on every word of Emanuela Maccarani, the head coach they ultimately dragged before the courts.
Yet sports justice handed Maccarani nothing more than a formal warning. While she was removed from her post, the Russian federation quickly swooped in to hire her. Today, she coaches the very athletes contending for gold medals against her former Butterflies.
"There is also a criminal trial underway," notes Daniela Simonetti, founder of the anti-abuse advocacy group ChangeTheGame. "Yet once again, the sports establishment has proven utterly incapable of confronting its own demons."
Endure and keep silent
The statistics are dreadful: nearly four out of ten minors suffer some form of abuse within a sporting environment. Psychological abuse accounts for 30 percent of cases, 19 percent report physical violence, and 14 percent involve sexual assault.
"And these figures are heavily underestimated," Simonetti continues, "because they only account for the tiny fraction of young athletes who find the courage to speak out. The vast majority suffer in silence.
"Some even come to believe that enduring humiliation, competing through injuries, and submitting to insane diets are prerequisites for becoming a champion".
"This is the dark side of sports that we at ChangeTheGame are fighting to drag into the light. In ten years, we’ve gathered two thousand reports—three hundred from rhythmic gymnastics alone."
When all is said and done, the only tangible reform achieved is the introduction of safeguarding officers (safeguarders) in amateur clubs—a designated point of contact meant to prevent abuse, violence, and discrimination.
"It’s a mandatory role, but just try asking any athlete's parents if they even know what one is... And besides, who is actually auditing this? Until the underlying culture changes—until we strip away the mantra that 'winning is the only thing that matters'—it will be nearly impossible to stamp out a phenomenon that shows no signs of slowing down."
Peter D’Angelo, a journalist, television author, and documentary filmmaker, explored the predatory "traps" that ensnare countless adolescents in his novel: "I wrote a story, tragically similar to so many we read about in the papers. A twelve-year-old girl chasing her passion for track and field, only to fall into the clutches of a manipulator."
In La trappola (The Trap, Einaudi Ragazzi), the protagonist Lia plunges straight into a waking nightmare of gifts, late-night text messages, and inappropriate physical contact disguised as special attention.
From athlete to psychologist
"It happened to me, and to countless other girls," shares Giulia Pairone, once a rising star of Italian tennis who, at just 17, ranked among the top 700 players in the world.
In 2019, Giulia reported her coach for sexual abuse. He was sentenced to four and a half years in prison; today, she works as a sports psychologist, helping others trapped in the same nightmare.
"That abuse slowly extinguished me, erasing my voice and my spirit. For years, all I wanted was to vanish, hiding behind shame and self-loathing. Then one day, I realized none of it was my fault.
"I found the little girl I had abandoned, stepped back onto a tennis court—something I never thought possible. I play for fun now. That is my greatest victory. And I travel to schools, tennis clubs, and television studios to tell my story. You can claw your way back from the abyss."
Vincenzo Fuoco emerged from that same abyss, though he was targeted by a sports executive from the age of twelve. Vincenzo shared his story in the 2024 documentary Voices, directed by Roberto Orazi: "I had been selected for the youth academy of a professional football club; I was on top of the world. Then I was approached by a team chaperone—someone I only discovered years later was a serial predator.
"He would pick me up from home, drive me back, and eventually the abuse started. I found the courage to report him, but too much time had passed. The state told me the statute of limitations had expired on everything except my life, which remains scarred forever."
In a world like sports—which continues to operate with the impunity of an independent republic—things are even worse: "Four years for a sexual assault charge to expire, versus eight years for match-fixing. Rigging a game carries twice the legal penalty of an abuse that destroys a human soul from the inside out," laments Daniela Simonetti.
"Our association helped Vincenzo. Today, he serves as a federal coach and safeguarding delegate and instructor for the Italian Football Federation (FIGC). Yet he never received justice, and he never will. Just like the vast majority of those who come forward."
Fabio Iudica, a sports law expert and arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS-TAS), has no doubts: "Most minors take a long time to process trauma. Squeezing the statute of limitations down to a mere four years for abuse is tantamount to refusing to protect victims. International sports bodies like the Gymnastics Ethics Foundation (GEF) allow up to 15 years to report offenses. In Italy, however, we are stuck in the past. And I find it scandalous that no domestic sports federation is willing to step up—if only to force the rest to catch up."
A look beyond the border
As a result, official figures continue to paint a distorted picture. For comparison: last year, the Italian Football Federation’s Safeguarding Commission handled 173 reports, forwarded 79 to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, and ultimately issued 49 disciplinary measures. In Switzerland, those numbers are more than double.
"We are talking about a country with 2.5 million registered members across various sports federations, compared to over 16 million in Italy," notes Peter D’Angelo. "To me, those numbers simply don't add up."
In the ChangeTheGame documentary, survivors appear one after another. There is Filomena, assaulted at 15 by her riding instructor; Asia, who developed bulimia due to the psychological abuse inflicted by her gymnastics coaches ("They called me a whale because I couldn't nail a routine"); and Anna, a judo prodigy heavily harassed by her master:
"He's a man in his seventies. He invites me to the centre of the tatami; I brace myself, expecting a strike to the face. Instead, he feints and lashes out with his right hand, grabbing my breast. I tell him, 'I don't find that funny.' He just laughs: 'See? I touched a pear.' At first, I thought I was the one in the wrong for making a big deal out of it. But the truth is entirely different: years of falling in love with a sport can be erased in a single second the moment someone decides to reduce you to a piece of fruit."
This article was reviewed by an external translation partner