My name is Francesca Cavallerio. I am currently an Associate Professor in Qualitative Sport Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. But in my “life before” I was a rhythmic gymnasts, a coach, a judge. Gymnastics was my life and I used to think that nothing was better than that space, that sport.

Then I began my PhD, investigating the psychosocial factors influencing the development of overuse injuries in young gymnasts. Once I had my researcher’s glasses on, it became impossible to un-see what was in front of me.

Since then, day after day, my love for gymnastics has not disappeared, but I have become frustrated, angry, and intolerant to what is (has been) going on in the sport I used to love blindly. Everything on this website, everything I have been trying to do with my research, is my response to this frustration, anger, and intolerance.

Let’s explore, understand, connect, stay in the discomfort, hear the pain, and move forward to change this culture.

I talk about gymnastics, because it is what I have known in my whole life. But every sport seems to have fallen prey of abusive practices. Sport has become – for some aspects – an unhealthy, unsafe environment. Let’s make it safer again.