Yesterday, while playing basketball in the official inter-institute tournament I was attacked by this paranoid-hysteric Austrian girl.

The teams that take part in the tournament are mixed boy-girl teams (1 girl - 4 guys) and the funny thing is that this fairly fragile and petite girl, of all the people in the court, picked me to play man to man with (she musta been no more that 55 Kgr and I am 110Kgr). Why she chose to do that I do not know; but I can make a hypothesis: she suffers from a severe case of penis envy and she picked me because I was the biggest-strongest guy in my team. This hypothesis is not derived from this game only as I know her (as a fellow sports person) for the past 2 year.

So, I would get the ball under the basket, and while turning to shoot, she would embrace me resulting in her getting hit by an elbow, arm or leg and also receiving a foul as this violates the "cylinder principle" - see below. She would scream like a shot animal, complain profusely and in general create an atmosphere that was anything but pleasant.

This happenned a couple of times. The third time it happened, she lost it! She attacked me while the game was stopped and, in front of everybody, elbowed me in the stomach with all her might. It was painful, even though I am twice her size.

Today, I sent an email to the our basketball association's board asking them to impose disciplinary measures on her. The email is below.

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Dear all,

After the abuse and physical violence that I was subjected to yesterday I decided that we should try and make a few things clear for future reference.

First of all, we should all become familiar with and try to enforce the FIBA rules of game. Specifically in my case, the rules that I feel were violated last night were the following (this all comes from FIBA's official game rules manual here)

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37.1.1 A disqualifying foul is any flagrantly unsportsmanlike action of a player, substitute, excluded player, coach, assistant coach or team follower.

38.2.3 Any of the above persons who are guilty of flagrant acts of aggression against opponents or officials shall be disqualified. The officials must report the incident to the organising body of the competition.

33.1 Cylinder principle
The cylinder principle is defined as the space within an imaginary cylinder occupied by a player on the floor. It includes the space above the player and is limited to:
• The front by the palms of the hands,
• The rear by the buttocks, and
• The sides by the outside edge of the arms and legs.
The hands and arms may be extended in front of the torso no further than the position of the feet, with the arms bent at the elbows so that the forearms and hands are raised. The distance between his feet will vary according to his height.
Diagram 5 Cylinder principle

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In my case, the girl who attacked me (what is her name by the way?) repeatedly violated my cylinder space, asking for fouls when in fact the accidental contact and resulting foul was her resposibility, as specified in the rules above.

I think that it is imperative to show that such aggressive and direspectful behavior (and I am referring to her deliberate attack and elbow-punch in the stomach outside the game) is not tolerable, here in Ispra and in fact anywhere. I therefore request that the Ispra basketball officials and executive/legislative members take the necessary disciplinary actions.
Many thanks,

Fotios

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