After Simone Biles won the 2013 World all-around competition, Carlotta spoke to the Italian press, stating: “I told Vany that next time we should paint our skin black so that we could win, too.”

And the gymternet quickly responded:

So Carlotta took to Twitter to apologize, and it went a lil something like this:

Soon after, David Ciaralli posted a statement on the Italian Gymnastics Federation’s Facebook page. But instead of apologizing, Ciaralli dug the hole even deeper by saying: “Carlotta was talking about what she thinks is the current gymnastics trend: the CoP is opening chances for coloured people (known to be more powerful) and penalizing the typical Eastern European elegance, which, when gymnastics was more artistic and less acrobatic, allowed Russia and Romania to dominate the field.”

Unfortunately, he didn’t stop there. He went on to state that there aren’t any black swimmers because their “physical features don’t suit the sport.”

He also indicated that under the current CoP, black gymnasts have an advantage, so much so that white gymnasts (i.e. Carlotta) wish they were black.

Ciaralli later apologized and claimed his statements did not represent the thoughts of the federation.



Finally, someone with half a brain at the Italian Gymnastics Federation released an official apology for Carlotta’s “misunderstanding.”