On Sunday (August 1st), a Belarusian sprinter was taken to the airport by her team after complaining about the Olympic national coaching staff and refused to board the plane.
Later on Sunday, 24-year-old Krystsina Tsimanouskaya sought protection from Japanese police at Haneda Airport. Earlier on Monday, Japanese Congressman Taiga Ishikawa tried to visit her in the airport section, but the police told him that she was no longer there.
Ishikawa, an opposition member of the upper house of Congress, told Reuters that a policeman refused to tell him where the athletes were. The police did not comment to reporters. They waited all night and did not see Zimanusskaya leaving.
The International Olympic Committee said earlier that it had already spoken to Zimanusskaya, who was accompanied by a staff member of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at the airport.
“She told us she felt safe,” the International Olympic Committee said on Twitter.
It added that the International Olympic Committee and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will continue their dialogue with Zimanusskaya and the authorities to “determine the next steps in the next few days.”
Reuters first reported on Sunday’s incident, highlighting the feud in Belarus, a former Soviet country strictly controlled by President Alexander Lukashenko. Since taking power in 1994, he has faced a wave of protests last year, and some athletes have also joined the wave of protests.
Zimanusskaya said that the coaching staff came to her room on Sunday and asked her to pack her bags. She said that she was then taken to Haneda Airport by the Belarusian Olympic team.
But she refused to board the plane and told Reuters in a message via Telegram: “I will not return to Belarus.”
The Belarusian Olympic Committee said in a statement that the coaching staff decided to withdraw her from the Olympics based on the advice of doctor Zimanusskaya on the “emotional and psychological state”.
The committee did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
Earlier, a Reuters photographer saw the athlete standing next to the police at the airport. “I think I am safe,” Zimanusskaya said. “I’m with the police.”
In a video posted by the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation on Telegram, Zimanusskaya asked the International Olympic Committee to intervene in her case.
A source at the foundation said that Zimanusskaya plans to apply for asylum in Germany or Austria on Monday, and the foundation supports athletes who have been imprisoned or marginalized for political views.
The head of the foundation and former Olympic swimmer Aliaksandra Herasimenia told Reuters that Zimanusskaya may also receive assistance from Poland.
“We seek help from many countries,” said Hera Simenia, a three-time Olympic medalist. “But the first one to respond was the Polish consulate. We are ready to accept their help.”
Lukashenko’s son Victor Lukashenko is the chairman of the Belarusian Olympic Committee.
Coaches’negligence’
Zimanusskaya participated in the women’s 100m preliminaries on Friday and plans to participate in the 200m preliminaries on Monday and the 4×400m relay on Thursday.
She said that because “I talked about the negligence of our coach on Instagram”, she had been expelled from the team.
Tsimanouskaya once complained on Instagram that after some team members were found to be ineligible for the Olympics, she entered the 4x400m relay because they did not receive a sufficient number of doping tests.
“Some of our girls did not fly here to participate in the 4x400m relay race because they did not conduct adequate doping tests,” Zimanusskaya told Reuters at the airport.
“The coach added me to the relay without my knowledge. I talked about it publicly. The head coach came over and said to me that the above had ordered me to be removed.”
The captain of the Belarusian track and field team in Tokyo, Yuri Moisevic, told the state-owned broadcaster STV that the decision to change the relay team had been made, but they did not immediately announce it so as not to interfere with the preparations of the athletes.
Moisevic said: “We are going to tell her everything and explain, especially because she is a substitute.”
The exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Zihanusskaya urged the International Olympic Committee to deal with the athlete’s case.
“She has the right to receive international protection and continue to participate in @Olympics,” Qihanusskaya wrote on Twitter. “It is also important to investigate the violation of the rights of athletes by the National Olympic Committee of Belarus.”
Zihanusskaya later likened the incident to the forced landing of a Ryanair jet in Minsk in May to arrest dissident blogger Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend, and proposed that all participating “attempts” Those who kidnapped Zimanusskaya are included in the sanctions lists of the European Union and the United States.
“None of the Belarusians leaving the Belarusian border are safe because they may be kidnapped, just like Krystsina Tsimanouskaya or Roman Protasevich,” she wrote on Telegram.
Vitaly Utkin, a member of the Belarusian parliament, criticized Zimanusskaya’s actions.
“This is a betrayal and betrayal of the Belarusian people and her fellow athletes,” STV quoted Utkin as saying.
A sort ofAthlete sentenced to jail
President Lukashenko faced large-scale street demonstrations last year for alleged election manipulation by opponents and ordered violent suppression of protesters. The president denied allegations of vote manipulation.
In a country where elite athletes often rely on government funding, it is unusual that some famous Belarusian athletes joined the protests. Several people have been sentenced to jail, including Olympic basketball player Yelena Lushanka and decathlon athlete Andre Klaushanka.
Others lost their national jobs or were kicked out of the national team for supporting the opposition.
During the Cold War, dozens of sports and cultural figures defected from the Soviet Union and its satellite countries in overseas competitions or tours. But the freedom of travel brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 reduced the need for such dramatic behavior.
