The tennis player was not allowed on the plane because of the Russian passport. Can you guess the country by meanness?

Arbitrariness against athletes from Russia, alas, has not gone away. Our athletes still periodically face discrimination based on nationality. Moreover, sometimes this happens even in places that are not related to sports.

Tennis player Vitalia Dyachenko experienced firsthand what it’s like to travel with a Russian passport. She was treated as unfairly as possible at the airport.

Eliminated in the second round

At the tournament in Egyptian Sharm el-Sheikh, where the prize fund was 25 thousand dollars, Dyachenko was seeded under the seventh number. In the first round, the Russian woman coped with the Slovak athlete Victoria Morvayova without any problems (6:2, 6:2), but in the next match she lost to Elena-Teodora Kadar from Romania with a score of 2:6, 4:6.

The tournament, for which Dyachenko was going to fly from Cairo, is taking place these days in Calvi, a city on the island of Corsica. The prize fund of the competition is 40 thousand dollars. Frenchwoman Jessica Ponchet is seeded under the first number. Of the Russians in France, Valeria Savinykh and Anastasia Tikhonova will play. But Vitalia, unfortunately, had to go home because of the Russophobic lawlessness of the Poles.

Even connections didn’t help.

The athlete posted her cry of the soul on social networks. The route from Cairo to Nice ran through Warsaw. It was the Polish airline that framed the Russian woman.

— Today, I was denied a flight to the tournament in Corsica by LOT (Polish Airlines) on the Cairo-Warsaw-Nice route, since I am a holder of a Russian passport. The rules of the airline are to ban Russians from flying on its flights! — Dyachenko wrote on her page.

Even letters from the WTA and ITF did not help Vitaliy: as it turned out, in the modern world they do not solve much. Even the connections of the girl’s father, who works at the UN, were powerless against the Russophobic Polish bureaucrats. No means no.

Photo: © Edgar Breshchanov / Vasily Ponomarev / Sportbox.ru

Had to go back

The stupid adherence to principles of the Poles cost Dyachenko dearly.

“As a result, I was stuck at the Cairo airport for 18 hours without food, water and the opportunity to fly,” Vitalia wrote.

The tennis player tried to fly on another flight, but there were difficulties here too. It turned out that the athlete cannot go directly to France, since her visa was issued in Spain. Accordingly, she had to fly to Madrid and make a transfer there to get to Corsica. As a result, the total number of flights increased from two to four.

Due to delays, she did not have time for the start of the tournament and was forced to cancel the trip.

– The only option is to return home and miss another game week. I’ve been recovering from a serious injury for the last six months, I’m being treated, I’m training and again I don’t have the opportunity to play after a long break, Vitalia was indignant.

Vitalia Dyachenko / Photo: © Maxim Konstantinov / Global Look Press

At the same time, the 18 hours that the girl spent at the airport cost her dearly in every sense. She was treated “like a third-class citizen” and ransoms cost several thousand euros. And all for the sake of not flying anywhere in the end!

In the spirit of the Poles

The situation in which Vitalia found herself is as outrageous as possible. But, alas, quite in the spirit of the Poles. As recently as today, the chairman of the National Olympic Committee, Krzysztof Pesevich, said that the main purpose of his work is to prevent Russians and Belarusians from participating in the Olympics and other competitions. Like, you need to think about this first of all, and then make all other decisions.

There is every reason to believe that such incidents with Russian athletes will happen even more often. Well, you need to be ready for them.