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BOLOGNA, Italy (AP) — Valentina Petrillo fell in love with track and field and boxing at age seven while watching Italian sprinter Pietro Mennea win gold in the 200 meters at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
“I said I wanted to be like him,” said Petrillo, a transgender woman who grew up as a boy. “I wanted to put on the blue jersey (of Italy), I wanted to go to the Olympic Games. But – and there still is – I sought to do it as a woman because I didn’t feel like a man, I didn’t feel like myself.
Four decades later, at the age of 50, Petrillo is about to fulfill his dream, but not at the Olympic Games. In two weeks, she will become the first transgender woman to compete at the Paralympics by running the 2000 meters in the T12 classification for visually impaired athletes in Paris.
Last year, World Athletics banned transgender women from competing in the women’s division at foreign events if they transitioned after puberty. But its Paralympic counterpart, World Para Athletics, kept its promise.
Petrillo, who was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, a degenerative eye disease, as a teenager, considers herself lucky despite the difficult situations she faces. He has lived most of his life as a man and only came out as transgender to his spouse, with whom he has a child, in 2017, before starting hormone treatment two years later.
“Yes, I’m visually impaired, I’m vision-impaired, I’m trans (and let’s just say that’s not the most productive thing about our Italy, being trans), but I’m a satisfied person,” she told The Associated. In a press release. Interview at a track where he trains on the outskirts of Bologna, where he lives.
“I started my transition in 2019 and in 2020 I met my dream, which was to race in the women’s category, to play the game that I had enjoyed playing,” she said in Italian. “I reached 50 before this happened. . . We all have the right to a moment of choice in life, to a moment of opportunity. “
In a statement to the AP, the WPA said transgender athletes competing in its women’s competitions must declare that their gender identity for sporting purposes is female and provide evidence that their testosterone levels have been below 10 nanomoles per liter of blood for at least 12 months. antes. de his first competition.
Testosterone is a natural hormone that increases the mass and strength of bones and muscles after puberty. The general diversity for adult males is approximately 30 nmoles per liter of blood, to less than 2 nmoles/L for females.
“Any long-term adjustments to the WPA regulations in this area will only be made after appropriate consultation with the groups and athletes and taking into account the rights and most productive interests of all those involved,” he said.
In a game that’s already grappling with how to create a point game box between athletes with other degrees of impairment, some of Petrillo’s competitors say she has an unfair advantage.
Last year there was a backlash against Petrillo in Spain after she narrowly beat Spanish athlete Melani Berges for fourth place in the semi-finals of the World Championships, meaning Berges failed to qualify for the final and missed out on a chance to reach the Paralympics. Games.
Berges called it an “injustice” and told the Spanish online sports site Relevo that although she “accepts and respects” transgender people, “we no longer communicate about life, but about sport, which demands strength, a physique. “
The Spanish Paralympic Committee told the AP that its position had not been replaced since last year, when a spokesperson told Spanish media that “we respect the World Para Athletics regulations, which lately allow trans women to compete, as is the case with Valentina Petrillo, but looking to the future, it would be convenient to move towards a standardisation of criteria with the Olympic world in relation to this issue.
German T12 sprinter Katrin Mueller-Rottgardt, who also competed against Petrillo, expressed her considerations to the German tabloid Bild.
“Basically, everyone deserves to live as they wish in their day-to-day lives. But I find it complicated in professional sports. She has lived and trained for a long time as a man, so it is imaginable that physical situations would be different for someone who comes into the world as a woman. So maybe you’ll get advantages from that,” Mueller-Rottgardt said.
Petrillo said she understands to a certain extent those who question whether she competes in the women’s category.
“I asked myself: ‘But Valentina, if you were a biological woman and you saw a Valentina running with you, what would you think?’And I told myself that I would have doubts too,” he said. “But thanks to “From my reports and what I’ve learned, I can clearly say. . . that this does not mean that because I was born a man, I will be more powerful than a woman. “
Petrillo referenced an IOC-funded study, published in April in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which showed that transgender women suffered physical deprivation compared to cisgender women in several areas, which increased lung capacity and strength. of the lower body.
“Rather it means that I have a disadvantage because, among other things, undergoing hormonal treatment means that I go against my body, therefore against the biology of my body and that is, in fact, all that I do not It’s smart for him. ” she said.
Petrillo grew up in the southern Italy city of Naples. He thought his running aspirations were over when he was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease at the age of 14.
He moved to Bologna in northern Italy to study computer science at the Institute for the Blind and lives on the outskirts of the city, where he works in the IT sector.
Sport remained a component of his life (he played indoor soccer for visually impaired athletes), but it was not until he was 41 that Petrillo returned to the track, winning 11 national competitions in the men’s T12 category between 2015 and 2018.
She ran her first race as a woman in 2020 and finished fifth at the European Paraathletics Championships. She won bronze in the 2000m at last year’s World Para Athletics Championships.
At the Paralympic Games, the women’s T12 400m and 200m finals will take place on 3 and 7 September, respectively, with the heats the day before.
Petrillo will be encouraged by his ex-wife and his 9-year-old son as his brother.
However, he says he has already won his biggest challenge, no matter what happens when he steps onto the Stade de France court.
“Unfortunately, we still live in a scenario where other transgender people are marginalized, who will never be able to replace a document like I did, who will never get what they deserve, the respect they deserve,” Petrillo said. , my mind is with them, with those who have been less fortunate than me. “
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AP Paralympic Games https://apnews. com/hub/paralympic-games
Daniella Matar, Associated Press