(23 Aug 2024)
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Bologna – 19 August 2024
1. Wide of Valentina Petrillo running towards the camera
2. Various of Petrillo while training
3. Close of track
4. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Valentina Petrillo, Paralympic athlete: ++STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT; PARTLY COVERED++
“In January 2019 I started the transition process and in 2020 I achieved my dream, which was to compete in the women’s category to play the sport that I have always loved, because I fell in love with athletics when I was seven years old seeing my idol Pietro Mennea win at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. I said to myself I want to be like him, I want to wear that blue shirt, I want to participate in the Olympics. But I wanted to do so as a woman because I didn’t feel like a man, I didn’t feel like myself.”
5. Various of Petrillo training
6. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Valentina Petrillo, Paralympic athlete: ++STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT; PARTLY COVERED++
"Unfortunately we still live in a situation where transgender people are marginalized, who will never be able to change a document like I did, who will never be able to get what they deserve, the respect they deserve. And therefore my thoughts go to them, to those who have been less fortunate than me. From now on I’d like to hear beautiful stories of transgender people, of people with disabilities, everybody. And my hope is that from my story they can find the inspiration and the strength to believe a different tomorrow is possible.”
13. Various of Petrillo training
STORYLINE:
Valentina Petrillo fell in love with athletics as a seven-year-old 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, who was assigned as male at birth. “I wanted to put on the blue (Italy) shirt, I wanted to go to the Olympics. But I wanted to do it as a woman because I didn’t feel like a man, I didn’t feel like myself.”
Four decades later, at 50, Petrillo is about to finally realize her dream, but not at the Olympics. In two weeks, she is set to become the first transgender woman to compete at the Paralympics when she runs the 200 and 400 meters in the T12 classification for visually impaired athletes in Paris.
Petrillo, who was diagnosed as a teenager with Stargardt disease, a degenerative eye condition, considers herself lucky despite the challenges she’s faced. She’s lived most of her life as a man and only came out as transgender to her wife — with whom she has a son — in 2017 before beginning hormone therapy two years later.
“In January 2019 I started the transition process and in 2020 I achieved my dream, which was to compete in the women’s category to play the sport that I have always loved,” she told The Associated Press in an interview at a track she trains on in a suburb of Bologna, where she lives.
World Athletics last year banned transgender women from competing in the female category at international events if they transitioned after puberty. But its para counterpart, World Para Athletics, has not followed suit.
In a statement to AP, the WPA said transgender athletes in its women’s competitions are required to declare 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 prior to their first competition.
German T12 sprinter Katrin Mueller-Rottgardt, who has also competed against Petrillo, expressed similar concerns to German tabloid Bild.
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