Carlotta Ferlito

Personal life

Ferlito was born on 15 February 1995 in Catania, Sicily, to Roberta Parasilti and Massimo Ferlito. She has an older brother, Gianpaolo, and an older sister, Ludovica.

Since 2011, Ferlito has been a star of the reality television series Gymnasts: Parallel Lives on MTV Italy, which follows the lives of seven elite gymnasts who train in Milan.

Gymnastics career

She began gymnastics when she was six years old. In 2007, she moved to Lissone, near Milan, to train at GAL Lissone.

2009

In March 2009, Ferlito competed at the annual City of Jesolo Trophy in Jesolo, Italy, for the first time. She placed second in the all-around with a total score of 54.850.

In December, she placed sixth in the all-around at the Gymnasiade in Doha, Qatar, with a score of 53.950. In event finals, she placed fifth on vault, scoring 13.212; second on balance beam, scoring 14.175; and fifth on floor, scoring 13.675.

2010

In March, Ferlito placed tenth in the all-around at the City of Jesolo Trophy with a score of 54.500. The following month, she competed at the 2010 European Women's Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Birmingham, where she contributed an all-around score of 53.725 toward the Italian team's third-place finish. Individually, she placed eighth in the all-around final (52.200) and eighth on balance beam (12.500).

At the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in August, Ferlito placed third in the all-around final with a score of 55.350. In event finals, she placed third on vault (13.700), sixth on uneven bars (12.725), second on balance beam (14.850), and eighth on floor (12.900).

2011

At her third City of Jesolo Trophy, and first as a senior, Ferlito placed fifth in the all-around competition with a score of 55.600. She also placed fifth at the 2011 European Championships in Berlin, with a score of 55.825. In event finals at the European Championships, she placed second on balance beam (14.500) and sixth on floor (14.050).

In May, at the Italian Championships in Meda, Ferlito placed second in the all-around with a score of 56.350. She also placed second on vault (13.750), sixth on uneven bars (11.800), first on balance beam (14.800), and first on floor (14.400).

In October, Ferlito competed in Tokyo at her first World Championships. She scored 54.332 in the team competition, in which Italy finished ninth, just missing the cut for guaranteed qualification to the 2012 Summer Olympics. In the all-around final, she placed fourteenth with a score of 55.082.

2012

In January, Ferlito competed at the London Prepares series, Italy's last chance to qualify a full team to the Olympics. She scored 14.066 on vault, 13.433 on uneven bars, 14.533 on balance beam, and 14.100 on floor, and the Italian team finished first, successfully qualifying. In event finals, Ferlito placed first on balance beam (14.500) and fifth on floor (13.966).

In March, Ferlito placed eighth at the City of Jesolo Trophy with a score of 56.550. Her club, GAL Lissone, also won the Serie A1 Scudetto for the second consecutive year.

At the 2012 European Championships in Brussels in May, she contributed scores of 14.166 on vault, 14.900 on balance beam, and 13.900 on floor toward the Italian team's third-place finish. The following month, at the Italian Championships in Catania, she placed second in the all-around (55.950), fourth on uneven bars (13.500), first on balance beam (14.900), and fourth on floor (13.200).

At the end of July, Ferlito competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. In qualifications, she placed 20th with a score of 55.500 and qualified to the all around final, where she finished 21st with a score of 55.098. In the team final, she contributed scores of 14.300 on vault, 14.366 on balance beam, and 14.100 on floor toward the Italian team's seventh-place finish.

2013–14

At the 2013 European Championships in Moscow in April, Ferlito finished fourth in the balance beam final (14.066) and fifth in the floor exercise final (14.216).

In October, she competed at the 2013 World Championships in Antwerp. She placed 14th in the all-around in qualifications (54.948) and 11th in the all-around final (55.399). In the beam final, she finished fifth with a score of 14.283.

At the 2014 American Cup, Ferlito finished eighth with an all-around score of 53.632. She was sick with mononucleosis for most of the rest of the year, and spent several months recovering from injuries and illness.

2015

In March, Ferlito competed at the City of Jesolo Trophy and qualified for beam finals, where she won bronze. At the European Championships in April, she scored 13.866 on vault, 13.000 on bars, 14.058 on beam, and 13.400 on floor, placing 13th in the all-around qualifications, but she did not make the all-around final because only two gymnasts per country could do so. She also finished 10th on beam, missing the event final by about a tenth of a point.

After several successful competitions, Ferlito was chosen to participate in the 2015 World Championships. She qualified to the all-around final in 16th place with a total score of 55.665, and the Italian team qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics in seventh place. On beam, with a score of 14.233 (difficulty: 5.7; execution: 8.533), Ferlito tied with Eythora Thorsdottir of the Netherlands (D-Score: 5.6, E-Score: 8.633). However, because Thorsdottir had the higher execution score, she earned the last place in the beam final over Ferlito. In the all-around final, Ferlito scored 14.441 on beam, the third-best score in that final (after Larisa Iordache's 14.766 and Shang Chunsong's 14.700). She finished in 12th place.

2016

Ferlito was the only Italian competitor at the 2016 American Cup in Newark, where she finished fifth.

At the 2016 City of Jesolo Trophy on 20 March, Ferlito fell on her head when her foot slipped off the end of the beam as she dismounted. She was taken to a hospital in Portogruaro, but scans revealed no spinal damage or other serious injuries.

At the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Ferlito placed 27th in qualifications with a total score of 55.599, and twelfth in the all-around final with a score of 56.598. The Italian team finished tenth in qualifications and did not qualify for the team final.

Controversies

After American gymnast Simone Biles, who is African-American, won the bronze medal on balance beam at the 2013 World Championships, Ferlito said in a video interview that she had told Italian teammate Vanessa Ferrari "that next time we should also paint our skin black, so then we can win, too." Ferlito later apologized on Twitter.

Two years later, at the 2015 European Championships, Ferlito was excluded from the all-around final because of the two-per-country rule and narrowly missed the beam final. Afterward, she posted on Twitter in Italian, "I am used to being a few tenths out and taking it in the ass. I will overcome these assholes." She later deleted the tweet and apologized in another tweet, writing, "Under stress, I do the worst of myself. I apologize, I did not want to cause offense and I'm sorry to have been misunderstood. Good luck to all."