The middle finger of the Butterflies

Taken during the Christmas holidays, this unedifying image portrays the athletes of the national rhythmic gymnastics team and some of their friends and relatives gathered around a table. Everyone is looking at the camera, all with their middle fingers raised. Do they perhaps turn to their former teammates – the blue Anna Basta, Nina Corradini and Giulia Galtarossa – who in recent months have recounted the abuses and violence suffered during the years of training with Emanuela Maccarani?

The medal-winning technical director of the national team, referred by the sports justice and investigated by the Monza prosecutor, in recent days has received the support of a piece of her world, with banners and also a collection of signatures published on Change.org. And the athletes and their captain, Alessia Maurelli, are also on her side, who wrote yesterday with an appeal via Instagram: «Don’t call us Butterflies anymore».

In this not very nice pose they are not graceful, but who is the middle finger pointing to? The photograph was published – and then removed – on the Facebook page of Change the Game, the association that helped the girls report and collected a dossier with over 200 testimonies of abuse in the world of rhythmics.

The photo circulated very quickly on Lombard techniques chats. And it quickly reached the girls who decided to tell their story. Who interpreted her as the last recipients of the gesture. Along with an avalanche of hateful messages and threats. «You are just unscrupulous people and you are trying to ruin a beautiful world with your *** – reads one of the messages addressed to the association -. You and those two bad guys.’

«The girls felt offended, they are saddened. It is normal to hear from the recipients of this message. We published it, but shortly after we removed it – explains Daniela Simonetti, the president of Change the Game -. Too many hate messages. We are collecting the screenshots, we will present a dossier to the president of the FGI Tecchi ».