The Russian Gymnastics Federation announced that champion Angelina Melnikova and six other athletes from the national artistic gymnastics team were denied entry visas to Croatia to participate in the European Championships.
Just two days before the scheduled departure, the list of those denied visas included, in addition to Melnikova, Viktoria Listonova, Anna Kalmykova, Leila Vasilyeva, Alexei Usachev, Sergei Naydin, Evgeny Kisel, coach Yuli Koksinkov, and doctor Sergei Golevskio.
The European Championships, hosted by the Croatian capital Zagreb, is a crucial qualifying event for the 2026 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships.
If the Russian women's national team stars are unable to participate in this tournament, the team will be forced to go through the World Cup qualifiers without its most prominent players.
In an official statement, the Russian Gymnastics Federation explained the details of the crisis, saying: "Two days before the scheduled departure date to Zagreb, the stars of the women's national team, as well as a number of players and staff of the men's national team, did not receive Croatian visas, without any official notification to us of the reasons for the refusal."
The statement stressed that the federation views this selective granting of visas as a systematic attempt to exclude one of the top contenders for titles, adding, "While reserve players and other members of the Russian delegation have received their visas, the stars of the first women's national team are still stuck without visas to this moment."
The Russian Gymnastics Federation concluded its statement by confirming that it had notified both the International and European Gymnastics Federations of this measure, emphasizing that it would take all necessary steps to ensure the host country guarantees the participation of Russian athletes in the competitions.
