AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
If you like political intrigue and Cold War-style defections during the Olympics, there is a story developing in Tokyo that is worth following. A female Belarusian sprinter has defected and been granted a humanitarian visa by Poland. Her husband managed to get out of Belarus, no easy task, and sought safety in Ukraine until he can join his wife. The story develops further today as news of the death of the leader of a Belarusian exile group based in Ukraine surfaced. The plot thickens.
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya boldly criticized Belarusian team officials on social media through her Instagram account. Her criticism was on the way the team officials were managing the team. She said that she was put in the 4×400 relay even though she has never raced in the event. She was then barred from competing in the 200 meters. Tsimanouskaya said she had never trained for the 4×400 relay and wasn’t prepared to compete. She requested the Court of Arbitration for Sport to r
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For some athletes, the Olympics arent just a chance to compete - theyre an opportunity to defect
For some athletes, the Olympics are.
On Sunday, Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya turned up at the Polish Embassy in Tokyo - becoming the latest Olympic athlete to refuse to return to her country out of fear for her personal safety.
The Olympics have served as sites of protest, platforms to isolate discriminatory regimes and theaters for Cold War tensions. For some athletes and coaches, the Games have also offered avenues to defect. The Olympics provide a very attractive opportunity for people to escape difficult situations at home, most often political repression, said Barbara Keys, a historian at Durham University.
Belarus athlete to fly to Poland
Olympian feared reprisals at home
Associated Press
TOKYO – Poland granted a visa Monday to a Belarusian Olympic sprinter who said she feared for her safety and that her team s officials tried to force her to fly home, where the autocratic government was accused of diverting a flight to arrest a dissident journalist.
An activist group that is helping athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya told The Associated Press that it bought her a plane ticket to Warsaw for the coming days.
The current standoff apparently began after Tsimanouskaya criticized how officials were managing her team – setting off a massive backlash in state-run media back home, where authorities relentlessly crack down on government critics. The runner said on her Instagram account that she was put in the 4x400 relay even though she has never raced in the event.