Vanessa Ferrari announced on social media that she will not be in Cuneo, due to a torn calf suffered during the Olympic test held on Wednesday 26th at the international women’s artistic academy, at the Pala Algeco in Brescia. The news was picked up by all the main national newspapers. The technical evaluation, called by DTN Enrico Casella, served to verify the exercises of the main Italian gymnasts in view of the Absolute Championships scheduled in Cuneo from 5 to 7 July. The Piedmontese event will be the last opportunity for an evaluation of the GAF squad that will take part in the Paris Olympic Games, so much so that the deadline for the official announcement of the five-ring team has been set for July 8th .
Five places available, won at the last world championships in Antwerp. The Army corporal was among the possible starters and had worked hard for her long-awaited return that could have marked her fifth Olympic participation. Vanessa already holds the record for appearances, having participated in Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio de Janeiro 2016 and, above all, Tokyo 2021, the edition that consecrated her in the IOC family with the silver medal in floor exercise. Ferrari, who has always been a pure ‘competitor’ and an insatiable competitor, to the point of earning the nickname of Cannibal of Orzinuovi (her hometown), would never have gone to France to play a simple walk-on role, and so she was preparing her exercises, especially vault and floor exercise, to try to reach an individual final and to make an important contribution to the team, with which she had already come close to the podium, in Japan, finishing fourth.
“Yesterday at the gym – explained Vanny in a moving post on Instagram, accompanied by the video of his injury while trying the screwed Tsukahara, perhaps the most characteristic element of his incredible technical baggage – in the take-off of a jump my calf gave out. With the Olympics a month away, there is no time frame for recovering from a muscle injury. Even though I have been battling various ailments since December, on a technical level I was very well. Unfortunately, however, his body couldn’t hold up. I undertook this path with the desire to fight to the end but also with the awareness that there could be this type of outcome, it’s part of the game. Even though I have had many injuries in my career, you never get used to it and the blow is always strong, especially after three years of training and one month from the final goal. Now I need a moment to digest this hard blow but I want to thank all those who supported me and who have always believed in me because the support I have received has always been fundamental”.
We owe her our thanks there, for what she has done so far and for the exemplary resilience that has always characterized her path. Who knows what this extraordinary athlete could have won if her body had been more forgiving, if fate had spared her one of the many accidents she has incurred. She remains the greatest Italian gymnast of all time, the only one to have obtained an all-around world title and an individual Olympic podium. But it is not yet time for definitive farewells and conclusions. Ferrari, in fact, has not spoken of retirement from the activity, at least for the moment. Los Angeles, obviously, seems like an almost impossible goal, but nothing is for Vanessa and, in any case, another star of the discipline, Oksana Chusovitina, has shown us that gymnastics careers have lengthened, and by a lot. In California the lioness from Brescia would be almost 38 years old, the Uzbek, who will not be in Paris, has reached 49.
“We were aware that with Vanessa we were taking a risk every time she took a simple run-up. – declared to Brescia Oggi the technical director Casella, who discovered her when she was very young and accompanied her in all the decisive moments of her long history – Unfortunately, the physical ailments of the last few months have certainly not helped his preparation. If you are unable to train continuously, with the expected workloads, it could happen that you hurt yourself. It’s a shame because Vanessa was starting to jump again with that technique and harmony that distinguished her throughout her great career. And then she had chosen a thrilling musical accompaniment. I hope at least this will not be lost and that you will be able to present it perhaps in some exhibition or in other contexts.”
Let us remember that the Italian women’s artistic gymnastics team, led by Casella together with Marco Campodonico and Monica Bergamelli, in the last three years, without Ferrari, has won two continental titles, the last in Rimini in 2024, and a silver in Antalya, in addition to a series of individual exploits. Unfortunately, the group will also have to do without Asia D’Amato, victim of an injury to the Romagna floor exercise last May. The roster of eight top gymnasts is now reduced to six, among them there will be the five that we will see in qualifying on the Bercy platform on July 28. The group, mostly made up of agents of the Fiamme Oro, includes girls born in 2006 – like the new star Manila Esposito and Angela Andreoli – that is, the year in which Vanessa, still fifteen, triumphed in Aarhus, Denmark. A passing of the baton only anagraphic, perhaps casual, which, we hope, can perpetuate the myth of a National team, capable also thanks to Ferrari, of becoming a legend. And that now wants to stay there!
