Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya left Tokyo for Austria on Wednesday (August 4), adding another dramatic twist to her diplomatic legend seeking asylum at the Polish Embassy.
Tsimanouskaya was originally scheduled to board the flight to Warsaw, and the government provided her with a humanitarian visa after she refused to board the flight back home against her will on Sunday and sought diplomatic protection.
Instead, she took off on an Austrian Airlines flight, which was scheduled to land in Vienna at 4:05 pm (1405 GMT). A member of the Belarusian community connected to Tsimanouskaya said that for security reasons, the diplomat had changed her flight.
Wearing a mask, blue jeans, blue shirt and sunglasses with the words “I RUN CLEAN” written on it, Zimanusskaya arrived at Narita Airport in the east of the Japanese capital in a van escorted by the police. Instead of talking to dozens of waiting reporters, she walked into the VIP area accompanied by several officials, pushed her suitcase, and then came to her door.
The International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday that it has launched a formal investigation into the case and is looking forward to the report of the Belarusian team.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Brinken accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime of carrying out an intolerable “transnational suppression” on this matter.
The 24-year-old Tsimanouskaya was originally scheduled to participate in the women’s 200-meter preliminaries on Monday, but said that the Belarusian coach appeared in her room in the athlete’s village on Sunday and told her that she must leave after criticizing team officials.
“I will not return to Belarus,” she told Reuters at the time.
This incident has aroused people’s attention to Belarus. After last year’s election triggered a wave of protests, the Belarusian police suppressed dissidents. The opposition claimed that the election was to keep Lukashenko in power.
The Belarusian authorities characterized the anti-government protesters as criminals or violent revolutionaries supported by the West, and described the actions of their law enforcement agencies as appropriate and necessary.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Belarusian activist Vitaly Shishov, who was in exile in Ukraine, was found hanged in a park near his home in Kiev, and Ukrainian police launched a murder investigation. He led an organization that helped Belarusians escape persecution.
