"It's all false, leave me alone". Raffaeli defends his former coach

She is the smallest of all, but her opponents have already discovered firsthand that inside that tiny body hides a lioness. Yesterday Sofia Raffaeli decided to put a full stop to the rumors unleashed by the wiretaps available to the Monza Prosecutor's Office investigating the alleged mistreatment and abuse reported by former Italian rhythmic gymnasts Anna Basta and Nina Corradini.

In recent days it emerged that in a telephone conversation on November 17, 2022, the assistant of former technical director Emanuele Maccarani, Olga Tishina, had been intercepted while telling another coach that Raffaeli had been "forced to undress due to a mistake" when she was coached by Julieta Cantaluppi in Fabriano. Cantaluppi now coaches Israel, but yesterday Sofia Raffaeli wanted to categorically deny the content of the interceptions: "All the things I have read in recent days are absolutely not true. The relationship between me and Julieta (Cantaluppi, ed.) has always been special. Do not use my name and that of Fabriano to involve us in things that do not concern us. Let me do gymnastics in peace", declared the champion from the Marche to ANSA.

"Now I'm focused on the World Cup in Sofia and I hope to see some articles in the newspapers talking about this race."

Since Monday, in addition to the ongoing investigations by ordinary justice (the investigating judge of Monza has requested the forced indictment of Maccarani and at the same time the archiving of the case for Tishina), the general prosecutor's office for sport at CONI, led by prefect Ugo Taucer, has also been investigating the affair.

As announced by the president of CONI Giovanni Malagò, a "dynamic" has been opened with an investigation by the Attorney General's Office into the wiretaps between the current president of the Federginnastica, Andrea Facci, and the former federal number one, Gherardo Tecchi.

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