A career studded with extraordinary successes is still not enough to protect athletes from aesthetic judgments. Manila Esposito, a nineteen-year-old champion of Italian artistic gymnastics, ended up at the center of a wave of bodyshaming following a video released on the official social channels of the Federginnastica.
In comments about her beam performances, several users made disparaging statements about her appearance, calling her “too big“, “weighed down” or claiming that “if he weighed ten kilos less he would do even better“. An attack that arrives at a crucial moment of preparation, on the eve of the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships scheduled in Zagreb from 13 to 16 August for the women’s competitions and from 19 to 23 August for the men’s.
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The indisputable palmarès of an Italian sports star
The opinions expressed online clearly clash with the technical value expressed by the gymnast. Despite her very young age, Manila Esposito boasts a world-class sporting CV, enriched by the successes achieved at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where she won the silver medal in the team final and the individual bronze in the beam specialty. His palmarès also includes two consecutive gold titles in the individual all-around competition at the European championships. The young athlete’s performances demonstrate how muscular strength and explosive power are fundamental requirements to compete at the top of the discipline, disproving the traditional canons linked to a presumed necessary thinness.
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The composed reaction and solidarity in the world of sport
Rather than fuel the controversy with direct replies, Manila Esposito chose a discreet and significant form of response. The Italian reshared some complaint videos made by users and fans on her Instagram profile to condemn the incident, accompanying the stories with a heart emoji.
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The case brings attention to a widespread problem in the women’s sports scene. In recent years other Italian and international athletes have reported similar attacks: the pole vaulter Elisa Molinarolo was targeted for her pelvis, the middle distance runner Gaia Sabbatini criticized the morbid attention paid to her external appearance, while the American tennis player Coco Gauff had to defend herself from insults linked to her afro hairstyles.
The cage of aesthetic standards and the strength of diversity
Events that require deep reflection on the relationship between body perception and athletic performance. For decades, artistic gymnastics has been associated with a rigid aesthetic ideal, often harmful to the physical and psychological health of young athletes. An athlete’s body is an instrument of extraordinary biological engineering, shaped by daily work to produce power, stability and balance.
A muscular and structured physique does not deprive the execution of elegance, but constitutes its real technical backbone. The battle against bodyshaming passes precisely through the deconstruction of these prejudices: we must free sport from anachronistic aesthetic expectations, restoring centrality solely to talent, determination and the results obtained on the field.
