Until her arrival at the Tokyo Olympics, she was unknown to the general public. Originally from the city of Klilmovitchi, near the Russian border, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was born in 1996, and was Belarusian champion in the 100 and 200 m in 2016.
On his Instagram profile, it is possible to see images of his workouts and meals. The young woman says she overcame an eating disorder. But the Belarusian athlete hardly talks about politics. Following her arrival, everything changed when she accused her country’s sports authorities of having wanted to forcibly repatriate her to Belarus, an authoritarian state that does not tolerate any dissent.
The 24-year-old sprinter was to run the women’s 200m on Monday. But she, according to her, was forced on Sunday to give up her participation in the Olympic Games by her coach and accompanied to the airport by officials from the Belarusian National Olympic Committee to bring her back to Minsk. His fault ? Having criticized his athletics federation a few days earlier.
The latter, for lack of having effectively organized the adequate anti-doping controls, had to give up aligning certain athletes scheduled for the event. But forced Tsimanouskaya to participate – without warning her in advance – in order to make up for the absences urgently. “I would never have reacted so harshly if they had come to me in advance, explained the situation to me and asked me if I am ready to run the 400m. But they did everything behind my back. “, she explained on Instagram.
The criticism did not pass, and Belarusian officials ordered Krystsina Tsimanouskaya to return to the country, according to the sprinter. As the BBC reports, she told radio station European Radio for Belarus that she feared returning to her country. And she told the media by.tribuna.com to be “afraid” of ending up in prison in Belarus and to have asked the Japanese police and the IOC for help to avoid boarding.
Faced with this situation, Poland has granted a humanitarian visa to the Belarusian sprinter, the Polish Deputy Foreign Minister said on Monday. The athlete “is already in direct contact with Polish diplomats in Tokyo. She has received a humanitarian visa. Poland will do everything necessary to help her continue her sports career”, wrote Marcin Przydacz on Twitter. Tsimanouskaya is “safe within the confines of our embassy” in Tokyo, he told the TVN24 news channel.
In Belarus, this type of criticism is not without risk. Because opposing the authorities, even sporting ones, is not tolerated. And the Belarusian Olympic Committee is headed by Viktor Lukashenko, son of the head of state. This organization has also swept away the explanations of the sportswoman, ensuring that she had been excluded from the Olympic Games on “decision of the doctors, because of her emotional and psychological state”. A “lie”, according to the athlete.
Many voices were raised in support of Krystsina Tsimanouskaya. But in Russian or Belarusian state media, criticism has been harsh. “How on the territory of a third country can someone be taken away by force? She was simply offered to return to Belarus, because she does not fulfill the demands of the national team. This is the right of the coach,” political commentator Alexander Shpakovski told the official Sovetskaya Belorusiya newspaper, suggesting that she “took advantage” of the situation to seek asylum.
Elsewhere in the world, the country is often nicknamed “Europe’s last dictatorship”. The arguments of the authorities therefore sometimes struggle to convince. “Poland offers its support to Belarusian citizens who, for political reasons, wish to leave Belarusian territory or do not want to return to Belarus,” said Marcin Przydacz. According to officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, quoted by Polish media, the athlete could travel to Poland this week.
As a reminder, Belarus has been the theater for nearly a year of merciless political repression. Thousands of critics of President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime are in prison or in exile. Including athletes. This sporting dispute, which quickly took a political turn, is therefore part of a tense context. Alexander Lukashenko faced a historic protest movement against his re-election in the summer and fall of 2020, which he is trying to put down by relentlessly repressing opponents, journalists and activists.
But beyond that, willingly getting involved in everything, he threatened the sports delegations leaving for Tokyo just before the Olympics. “Think about it before you go. If you come back empty-handed, it’s better not to come back at all” to Belarus, he said.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, leader of the Belarusian opposition, for her part thanked Sunday evening “the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland for having offered asylum” to the sprinter. During the 2020 wave of protest against Alexander Lukashenko, the sportswoman had also signed an open letter with some 200 athletes denouncing the violence of the police against anti-power demonstrators.
