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Federica Pellegrini to the hyenas: “They called me the” man eater “”

The beginning of the new life of Federica Pellegrini also passes by TV. After the farewell to competitive swimming, Hyenas they wanted her as a host for one evening and the champion seemed really at ease in front of the cameras. Like all the other presenters who preceded her, she too had a moment all to herself, a short monologue that retraced some moments of her life as a sportswoman.

«Here many women in recent weeks have talked about their experiences and their ideas, and tonight it’s my turn. I have never shied away from comparison: I know I have character, and I’m not ashamed of it. I’ve always stood up for what I believe in, exposed myself and defended the people I love, paying the consequences. It’s part of the game, ”the former swimmer began.

Federica Pellegrini and Nicola Savino © Daniele Schiavello.

“I accepted, I thought about it, and there is one thing that made me think in particular: in all these years, in which I have competed against women, why have I had to compare myself so much more often with men? Men who were waiting for me whether I won or lost. Because if you fall you are a finished athlete, and if you stand up you are a princess placed on a pedestal. Pedestal that, in any case, sooner or later you pay, because if a man wins and goes rightly proud of it, he is a bomber, if a woman wins and goes rightly proud of it, he pulls it off. So they are all waiting for the disaster, like “let’s see what happens through the peephole”, that if it goes wrong we go out on the landing to celebrate ».

Judgment has never failed, since the very beginning. “Men who judged my private life, because if you are a male athlete and you have relationships you are a successful man, if you are a female athlete and you have relationships you are man-eating. Like that son of a swimming coach, who when I defended my coach tweeted “yeah, he’s your penis of the year.” A very fine sports analysis … which I then ask myself, why “the penis of the year”? Is it annual, like car tax? Men who at 16, at my first Olympics, when I was struggling with acne like all teenagers in this world, commented on the radio “it will be testosterone”. How many laughs. Men who, in my work, have the right to victory because all the sports that you, a woman, have started to practice, they practiced them first, they performed them better, they invented them. Because important sports “are men’s sports”. Because important things “are men’s things” », he continued.

«It’s time to take stock, and then tonight I tell these men that if you liked to think so, I’m glad you enjoyed it, at least you. TOother men, those in my life, I say thank you for giving me a look that believed in my eyes, in my strength, in my beauty. It’s the men who matter to me: those who do not need men’s things ».

The last reflection he reserved for his personal experience with women: “Ah, there are also bitches, of course. But they asked me to speak for a few minutes, not for a few seconds ».

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