The 27-year-old athlete Eugenia Bosco, silver medalist with Argentina in sailing at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, has denounced having suffered sexual abuse from her coach when she was 12 years old.
The Sampedrina sailor, who competed with Mateo Majdalani in the Olympic event, has put Leandro Tulia in the focus of all eyes. He was his coach in the sailing training categories at the Yacht Club Olivos (YCO) in the northern area of Greater Buenos Aires.
The athlete began sleeping in the club with her classmates at the age of 12. They were supervised by the coach and according to a complaint in the newspaper The Nation was sexually assaultedbut he was too young to understand what was happening to him.
Bosco claims it all happened over a summer weekend. Tulia’s ‘modus operandi’ was manipulate his victims into doing him “favors”with touching and massages included. He even threatened them and offered them privileges in exchange.
For Eugenia it has been important watch the Netflix documentary Gymnast A. The predatory doctorabout cases of abuse in American gymnastics, to be able to report her experience.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and I cried. The memory unlocked and I thought: ‘This happened to me. My parents trusted this person and the club. “They believed their children were safe, but they weren’t there every day to see them,” he says.
“I was 11 or 12 years old and I pushed him out of my life until a few years ago when I was able to see him, obviously working and with people accompanying me. I was able to bring him back to my mind and another process began. I knew there was something inside me, I didn’t know where it came frombut I knew there was something. And when that came, I began to understand many things,” he explains.
His coach denies it
The sailor’s complaint has provoked a wave of lawsuits against the coach, who denies the accusations. However, the yacht club where he had worked for 20 years has suspended him.
For their part, the members of the Yacht Club Olivos board of directors have not made official statements. Yes indeed, The Nation states that the club remains “neutral” and “does not take sides”considering that “everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”
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