Gymnastics and abuse, Duranti: ‘Weight is never a discomfort. Anna Enough? She was a sister…’

New episode, the second, of the sporting trial against Emanuela Maccarani and Olga Tishina, respectively coach (as well as suspended technical director) and assistant of the Italian rhythmic gymnastics team, accused last November by some former students of non-compliant training as a cause of eating and psychological disorders that have emerged over time. In Milan it was the day of testimonials, including the butterfly Agnese Duranti, Olympic bronze medalist at the 2021 Tokyo Games, and Anna Basta, the former gymnast who was the first to denounce after leaving the Desio blue group in mid-2020.

Clarity

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Before the federal prosecutor Michele Rossetti, the time has come for Agnese Duranti to enter into the merits of the matter and clarify things, after five months of silence and almost four years spent in the room with Basta: “I was appalled by the statements given to the press, I was well aware of Anna’s moods and the daily panic attacks or thoughts of suicide that have been written about: the idea that it could happen has never occurred to me and I am not a little attentive to the moods of my friends , we almost had a sisterhood relationship with her”. She then continues: “I’ve never experienced the weigh-in phase as an inconvenience, our sport is aesthetic, we try to be homogeneous. Olga Tishina, who usually weighed us down, let us know if we weighed a little more. ‘Heavy ass’ or ‘ham get off the ground’ are phrases spoken in moments of tranquility, they have never been offensive. We ourselves were particularly attentive, we said to each other ‘either push a little more or lose weight’. I remember also telling Anna in 2019, in the post-injury period she was 4 kg more than me, I pointed this out because by repeating a push exercise with her behind my back, I had bruised and peeled”.

Family pressures

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Duranti also contextualizes the message sent to Anna Basta on the occasion of her birthday, in January 2021, in which she had written “I’m sick of living in silence and I’m happy that I don’t have to do it anymore”. Today she explains: “The reference was to the impossibility of participating in the European Championships and to many other things that had been taken away from us due to Covid”. Finally, she closed her on the problems of her ex-partner: “she suffered a lot from the expectations of her family, even though she heard from her parents every day, she exaggerated things about her and told half-truths due to the pressure they put on her. She said she was good, that she was never wrong, but she’s an athlete so she can’t really get to the top. In addition, she has always been very touchy, For every note or correction she raised a wall between herself and the others. I remember that once Martina Centofanti ran away to the bathroom to cry nervously before the World Cup because she could no longer handle Anna ”.

The accusations

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The time for a “non-greeting” between the two former companions and it fell to Anna Just to confirm the statements made in the complaint last November. Starting from the daily weighing phase: “In Desio we weighed ourselves every day in our underwear, but nobody forced us, we took off our bra, some even the hairpins to lose some more weight. 3-4 ounces more were enough to get Olga Tishina’s comment, like “Bambino growing?” or “Aren’t you ashamed?” in a reproachful tone. Then in training I suffered the consequences, there was a difference in treatment with the others even on equal terms”. As for her relationship with the coach Maccarani, the former blue recalls: “Once in 2019, raising her voice, she said to me ‘Lose weight a bit, maybe your ass shrinks and you pass in the circle’. We all had incorrect behavior at the table, but I don’t remember any companions who ever represented the weight problem to me. I sought a confrontation with her in 2018 and she reassured me, but in reality nothing had changed. I tried to talk to her again in 2019 and received reassurances again, but the problems returned in training. Maccarani also tried to socialize outside the gym, but I never trusted him. Once in Follonica we were rehearsing the circles-clubs exercise, at a certain point she stopped the music and overturned a table with a chair, but not against me ”.

The problems and the farewell

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Lastly, La Basta returns to the reasons that prompted her to leave the rhythmic scene: “Why did I stop? It all started at the end of the summer holidays in 2017, I received a message that from a photo posted on Instagram I looked fat and that I should lose weight. Comments and anxiety began to mount. I’ve gotten to the point of no longer bearing these psychological pressures, I also told my parents and they understood me”. Also in the file are two emails sent to parents between 2019 and 2020: “Even with my mother I was ashamed of myself, I told her the false weight, I did it to get her comfort, but they never pressured me about the activity sports and university. I never felt obligated to stay at the Academy for my parents. I was afraid of disappointing them because that’s how I am, I was crushed by responsibilities, I was disgusted, I was afraid to eat. I had a very, very bad time when it all spilled all over me. After I stopped, for a while I was also away from home, I was full of anger and I poured it on my family… I felt hatred towards rhythmic music”.

The return

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For about a month, however, Anna Basta has embarked on the path to become federal technician of rhythmic gymnastics, after having unsuccessfully attempted to create an academy in her name, and next summer she will direct a summer campus for the girls of the Florentine Gymnastics Poggetto, while categorically denying (as argued by another witness, judge Manuela Agnolucci, according to which Basta was telling that “by joining the denunciations there was something to be gained from this whole story”) of having earned money from the denunciations or from the apparitions television. The wishes of Emanuela Maccarani, the national team coach who appeared serene at the end of the hearing, go to her: “There is no sick system, it’s just training. I wish Anna a long career and I believe that this desire to put herself on the other side can help her resolve her differences in the way of interpreting things about her ”. New hearing on June 16, the parties may ask to hear other testimonies.