July 18, 2018 - With all the Google interest in Croatia over the last few days, an explanation of the reasons for one of the most-searched terms - Croatian president bikini.
Football celebrations aside, it has been a fascinating few days to be a webmaster of a Croatian portal dedicated to news about Croatia in English. As with all other portals, I am sure, our stats are through the roof, as people Google to find out more about this little country with a big heart who dared to dream.
Apart from the predictable search terms such as Where is Croatia, Croatian girls, Croatia sex and the like, there is one constant topic which ranks up right there with all the most popular searches - and a rather unusual one. Croatian president bikini.
It is no secret that Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic is considered by many to be a much better-looking president than many of her grey-suited counterparts, and her antics at the World Cup certainly raised her international profile. So much so that she actually got 25% more mentions in the international media than Luka Modric on the night of the final, according to media monitoring service, Mediatoolkit.
But why all the bikini searches?
The explanation goes back to early 2016, when the President went on a rather unusual trip to the United States, where she famously gave an interview outside The White House, but had no meeting inside the presidential house. While that visit went largely unreported in the international media at the time, she did make The Washington Post and many more publications for a rather bizarre other reason.
Called 'the President who broke the internet', photos allegedly of the Croatian President in a bikini went viral, and it was quite some time before it was realised that far from being President Kolinda, the photos were in fact of the model and reality star, Coco Austin. You can read the original TCN article from 2016 here.
As if often the case in Croatia, things are not quite as they seem to the outsider...
