Breaking: Visa rejections by US embassy prevent Ethiopia from entering full teams in jr races at 2026 World Cross Country Champs

U.S. odds of medaling rose, while the value of medaling plummeted. It was entirely predictable that this government would deny visas to key athletes. The only virtue is that they haven't (yet) devastated the senior fields. What must FIFA and the IOC thinking will happen to the World Cup this year and the Olympics in 2028?

Age cheating isn't necessarily a part of this. The juniors are having problems because they have probably never gotten international visas before, while the seniors have done this many times. If it's just Ethiopia, you've got to wonder if this is targeted to help our medal chances, but at too low a level to create a major diplomatic incident.

Age cheating and doping, yes, but overstaying visas is not something I can recall any major Ethiopian runner ever doing in the United States.

Not only Ethiopian.

Antar Mounir Dembri - Athletics (Algeria)
8h ago·

We have been informed that, with regard to the World Cross Country Championship scheduled for January 10, 2025 in Florida, USA, and concerning the participation of the national team for the under-20 category (U20), the delegation has submitted its US visa application files within the specified deadline of December 28, 2026.
However, the US embassy did not grant the visas for reasons that remain unknown. Following this, the president of the Algerian Athletics Federation, along with the technical director, held a meeting with the athletes, during which the circumstances and reasons for their non-participation in the World Championships were explained.
Based on this development, it was decided to direct the national team to participate in the Arab Cross Country Championship, scheduled for January 24, 2026 in Nineveh, Iraq.

Munir Dambri

I also dont see any U20 Moroccan delegation listed by the worlds athletics.

24.000 billions GDP + total failure

40 years of history if its cheat then its your shame first.

As long as I breath I will not let any "success story" coming from the West manipulating our countries in the South.

We know it and we not sure about it: its pure lie.

(and I'm not speaking about the sport only)

The US is a complete joke.

The World Cup and Olympics are going to be a disaster.

As a former foreign service officer who did a lot of visa adjudications, I find this conduct by the U.S. State Department unconscionable. First, let's be clear: if there is age cheating, that's not the State Department's problem at least as the competition is concerned (it is about presenting accurate information on a visa application, though).

This certainly sounds to me like enthusiastic implementation by consular officers of Trump's visa ban on s-hole countries.

I would think the meet organizers should be reaching out to Florida's senators for some assistance, in the unlikely event they care.

I also find it dismaying to see the note about how Kenyan/Ethiopian dominance has discouraged a lot of countries from even sending teams. The only European teams in the senior races are GB and France! Really? They all run cross country - they had a European Championship last month. Sure, their teams probably won't finish that high but there are few individuals (Ingrebrigtsen, if he wants to bother), Batocletti, and a few others who would do very well.

Seb Coe is trying to get Cross Country into the Olympics. If athletes and teams won't even bother with the Worlds, why should it get into the Olympics?

... for an event like this, you need an in-state politician helping to get things done. I don't think Neal Dunn, the Congressman from the Tallahassee area, nor the two Florida Senators, nor the Governor, would have lifted a finger to help in this political climate, unfortunately.

Maybe. Or it could be countries that lack birth documentation are also "s-hole countries" in his poor choice of words. You may not like that distinction, but if someone wasn't born in a hospital and no records were created at the time, what is someone at the border to do when it's clear the documentation was created only when it was necessary to enter your country? It would appear like a forgery, or at least suspect, to anyone looking at it.

You might want to check your privilege here, and I mean that seriously. You can travel anywhere you'd like because you come from a fully functional nation that provides all the paperwork you need to do so, from birth to death. That's not the case everywhere.

Also a former FSO. Depending on what documents the embassy requires of applicants, I could imagine the Ethiopians presenting documents showing U20 status that the conoffs thought was fraudulent, leading to rejections. It would be interesting to know why some of the applicants were approved and others weren't.

Separately, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Weini Kelati, who claimed asylum here in 2014 after World Juniors.

Oh cry more. This is the brand of politics you let run rampant on this website without any questions asked. It's also your personal politics. So you get what you voted for!

This is really disappointing. You send your athletes to WXC to race the best and athletes are prevented from entering the country of the event.

Not surprised with current US administration. I wonder how many other athletes will be rejected.

You have to be really dumb if you think the Trump administration is somehow interested in denying visas to Ethiopia so the US can win a U20 medal in cross country. Like how deep does the TDS go? Does anyone who follows this sport really think it is big enough to capture the attention of anyone in the federal government?

Getting a visa/green card/citizenship is a highly bureaucratic process. The bureaucrats, regardless of party affiliation (and if you have any experience with government, you'd know that most of them are democrats) will deny anything that isn't 100% by the book. Try going to the DMV or passport office missing one of your documents and see what happens.

The Ethiopians screwed something up. It could be something nefarious like trying to sneak overaged athletes onto the U20 team, but it could also just be incompetence. Perhaps in the past they were able to get visas without ironclad documentation and thought they'd be able to slide this time, and just got caught unprepared.

If you think this is a Trump plot you're really just mentally disturbed. Was Edward Cheserek's failure to get citizenship an Obama plot?

Kebede said at least 14 athletes had their US visa applications rejected and that some coaches and team officials also experienced problems. The majority of rejected applications were from U20 athletes (six men and four women), but Kebede said four senior athletes also had their applications rejected, including two members of Ethiopia’s 4 x 2k mixed relay.

Ethiopia held its trials for World XC on November 9. Kebede said the federation first applied for visas for its traveling party at the US Embassy in Addis Ababa on December 12 and that 23 of its initial 34 visa requests were rejected.
Kebede said the federation did not receive a reason for why the visas were rejected.

This is very likely not about age cheating but rather about their desire to prevent north and East African athletes from overstaying their visas. They might well be targeting the juniors not because they don't know how to apply for a visa (since the national federation handles that) but rather because they think that juniors from poor countries who have not yet established a money-making pro career are bad risks. I would bet they wouldn't say that about any young Slovenian female xc runners.

Initially refusing 23 of 34 Ethiopians visas isn't just mean-spirited bureaucrats being sticklers about the law. It's a systematic effort.

Trump policies finally paying off. Of course, on topic posts on first page already deleted. Pretty thin skin.

Good point about Kelati but she was 17 and not exactly a major Ethiopian runner at the time. She finished 20th nationally at the end of her first xc season before winning as a senior. There are probably dozens of Ethiopian 18 year olds who could win U.S. hs nationals.