A biological male athlete who reportedly compared his critics to Nazis has taken his eight title in Italian women’s professional running after beating out his female competitors at the Italian Indoor Masters Championship in Ancona earlier this month.
50 year old Valentina Petrillo – born Fabrizio Petrillo – won the 200m race for women aged 50 to 54 years beating Christina Sanulli, Denise Neumann, Agnese Rossi who came in second, third, and fourth respectively.
DCU professor and Sunday Independent columnist Eoin O’Malley shared footage of the race asking “Does anyone think this is right?”
Does anyone think this is right? https://t.co/W1X9Zzgnf8
— Eoin O'Malley (@AnMailleach) March 20, 2023
Statistician Marco Alciator, who observed the race, said that the three female athletes who followed Petrilllo over the finish line should have occupied the winners’ podium “were it not for the fact that Petrillo is still unbelievably entitled to compete in the women’s category”.
He added that “in the men’s M50 category with his time he would have finished 14th,”.
Alciator said that the legitimate winner of the race was Cristina Sanulli who he said would have earned a record for her time.
Sanulli who lost out on her title to her male competitor said that she and most of her female counterparts “do not feel equal, precisely because [Petrillo’s] physical structure is male” adding that his running abilities were “not at par”.
“We feel very discriminated against.”, she said.
Upset at criticism of his title win and the allocation of a private changing room after concerns were raised by feminist group Redfem Italai, Petrilllo reportedly compared his critics to Nazis saying they were “on the same level as Hitler,”.
Petrillo who reportedly changed his name and went on cross sex hormones in 2019 qualified to represent Italy at the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics after winning three gold medals at the qualifiers in the 100m, 200m and 400m T12 events.
It was previously reported that Petrillo was married to a woman before deciding he wished to live as one openly.
He is legally allowed to compete against both able bodied women and female paralympians as he has a diagnosis of a degenerative eye condition called Stargardt disease which causes visual impairment over time.
Petrillo was reportedly banned from representing Italy at the Tokyo Paralympics by the Italian federation just before the competition.
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