ROME, Italy (AFP) — Emanuela Maccarani, the former coach of Italy’s rhythmic gymnastics team, will go on trial next year accused of bullying athletes, her lawyer told news agency AGI on Monday.

A former national team gymnast herself, Maccarani will face charges of abuse of minors at a court in Monza, in northern Italy, on 10 February.

The trial is the result of explosive claims made public nearly three years ago by two promising Italian gymnasts, Nina Corradini and double world champion Anna Basta, who both quit the sport while still teenagers as a result, they say, of the treatment dished out by Maccarani.

During Maccarani’s near three-decade reign at the Italian team’s National Training Centre in Desio, not far from Monza, days began with gymnasts being weighed in front of one another.

Giulia Galtarossa, now 34 and world champion in 2009 and 2010, said she was berated by a coaching assistant for eating a pear, and handed her diet sheet with the message “we have a little piggy in the squad.”

Maccarani, 59, led Italy to the top of a sport traditionally dominated by countries from the former Soviet bloc.

The affair appeared to be over in September 2023 when Maccarani was given a simple warning by the disciplinary tribunal of the country’s gymnastics federation (FGI) and handed back the reins of the national team, nicknamed the “Butterflies.”

But in March the FGI, under new president Andrea Facci, sacked Maccarani.

The FGI’s official explanation to AFP at the time of her dismissal was that the organisation wanted to “open a new cycle in preparation for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.”

Among those to win world and Olympic medals under Maccarani’s charge is Sofia Raffaeli, who took bronze in the all-around discipline at the 2024 Games in Paris.