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WORLD✒ EDITORIALABSURDITY:
Two-time world champion from Russia barred from Croatia
Filed 1h ago · Via NV · The Buffoon Desk
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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0
Photo: Thomas Davidson · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons
Ekaterina Selezneva, a two-time world champion in rhythmic gymnastics from Russia, says she was turned away at the airport before she could even board her first connecting flight to Dubai en route to Croatia. She had a valid passport, a valid visa, plane tickets, and had completed online check-in, according to her Instagram account.
Selezneva says she spent roughly three hours trying to get an explanation from check-in staff and airline representatives, with no luck reaching Croatia's immigration service either. She ultimately gave up and went home, still without a written reason for the refusal.
The Aura Cup Croatia 2026 rhythmic gymnastics tournament is currently underway in Zagreb, though Selezneva did not confirm that was her intended destination.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.
✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK
A visa that doesn't actually get you in the door is a strange kind of paperwork, the sort of thing a bureaucracy hands out so it can say it did something while reserving the right to change its mind at the counter. Nobody owes a retired gymnast an explanation, maybe, but three hours of silence from everyone involved says the explanation wasn't exactly sitting right there waiting to be given. When the best anyone can offer is a shrug and 'someone needs it this way,' that's not policy, that's just a closed door with extra steps.
