Just two years ago, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya (Krystsina Tsimanouskaya) waved the gold medal of the 2019 Summer Universiade and was welcomed by smiling Belarusian track and field athletes and academic officials. Biggest victory Belarus However.
Now, as her coach and delegation official, the same bureaucracy is threatening her life Warn the crying Zimanusskaya In the leaked audio, she was “entangled in spider webs” and suggested that “excessive pride” often leads to suicide.
The 24-year-old sprinter’s dramatic decision to refuse to return to Minsk from the Tokyo Olympics shows Political protests and repression in Belarus Touched the lives of countless people, including a promising young sprinter who tried not to get involved in politics and persisted in the sport.
She said in an interview in 2015 that Tsimanouskaya was born in the town of Klimavichy in eastern Belarus. Her early sprint experience was mainly limited to regional competitions and “playing against boys in the yard, I usually win.” When an Olympic coach offered her a position in an academy at the age of 15, her parents worried about her future and wondered if her Olympic dream was worth the risk. She persuaded them with the help of her grandmother.
Tsimanouskaya is a rising star due to her strong performance in the 100m and 200m sprints. She won the gold medal in the 2019 Universiade and the silver medal in the European Games held in Minsk in the same year. In Tokyo this week, she posed next to a scoreboard with an Olympic sprint icon and wrote that her first game “will be etched in my memory” and that she is “right now.”
A former teammate said that Zimanusskaya, who was described as “diligence” and “enthusiastic”, might be disappointed by the coaching staff when she unknowingly participated in the 4x400m relay. This is something she has never participated in. competition.
“She is 100% professional and 100% passionate about her sport,” said the athlete, who requested anonymity, because she is currently in Belarus. “I can imagine the anger she must feel [at being entered in the 4x400m relay] And she needs to release her emotions, but she can’t imagine [this]. This is a tragedy. “
This week, her conflict with the Belarusian coach escalated into a full-scale war. Her parents warned her not to go home because the Belarusian national television and even some national teammates opposed her. Several other athletes who participated in the competition with Zimanusskaya declined to speak for this article, saying that the topic was too controversial to be discussed publicly.
“Some terrible things are happening here,” her parents told her, according to Dmitry Navosha, a member of the advocacy organization Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation. “We ask you not to return to Belarus.”
since The protest started in August last year Because of Alexander Lukashenko’s controversial re-election, the athletes were urged to publicly oppose the regime or sign letters supporting the government. Tsimanouskaya and her husband Arseniy Zdanevich fled Belarus for Ukraine on Sunday. They deliberately avoided the political struggle of the past year. “We are just ordinary athletes, we only focus on sports, we are not interested in opposition sports,” Zdanevich told Sky News in Kiev.
Navosa pointed out that Zimanusskaya had neither signed an open letter calling for Alexander Lukashenko A “paranoid dictator”, she also did not sign a letter of support for him. Such rejection requires “great will.”
She is now facing prolonged exile. Polish officials said she can continue her track and field career in Warsaw, where she is likely to be reunited with her husband. Her parents and grandmother stayed in Klimavichy and the police reportedly visited them. She and the people around her will remain the targets of the Belarusian government. “I decided to leave without hesitation,” her husband Zdanevich said.
