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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2021 21:06:20 GMT
The 24-year-old sprinter earlier said she was pressured to leave the Olympics over her complaints about Belarusian sporting officials. A statement from the Belarus National Olympic Committee said the athlete is “safe and secure” and was withdrawn from the Tokyo Games on doctors’ advice about her “emotional, psychological state”. She has now been offered asylum in Poland after heading to the Polish embassy in Tokyo. A Belarusian sprinter voiced fears for her safety as she refused an order to fly home early from the Olympics for criticising her coaches. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya says she was forced to pack before being taken to the airport in Tokyo against her will. The 24-year-old says she sought police protection at the terminal so she would not have to board the flight. "I think I am safe. I am with the police," she was heard saying, as she was pictured surrounded by officers. The sprinter, who was due to compete in the women's 200m event on Monday, had complained on social media about being entered into another race at short notice. She says she was "put under pressure" by team officials to return home and asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for help. "They are trying to get me out of the country without my permission," she said in a video posted on the Telegram channel of the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation (BSSF), a group that supports athletes jailed or sidelined for their political views. The IOC said it was seeking clarification from Belarussian officials - who earlier said she was taken off the team because of her "emotional and psychological condition". In a later message, the IOC said it had spoken to Ms Tsimanouskaya. "She has told us she feels safe," it said. The flight took off without Ms Tsimanouskaya on board. She is now "safe" and in police protection, the BSSF's Anatol Kotau told the BBC. Earlier Ms Tsimanouskaya told radio station European Radio for Belarus (ERB) she was afraid to return to her country.
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Post by Admin on Aug 2, 2021 6:35:25 GMT
A Belarusian sprinter refused to get on a flight from Tokyo on Sunday after being taken to the airport against her wishes by her team following her complaints about national coaching staff at the Olympic Games.
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, 24, sought protection from Japanese police at Haneda airport late on Sunday. Early on Monday, Japanese lawmaker Taiga Ishikawa tried to visit her at the sub-precinct at the airport but police told him she was no longer there.
Ishikawa, an opposition member of the Upper House of parliament, told Reuters a police officer declined to tell him where the athlete was. Police did not comment to reporters, who had been waiting through the night and not seen Tsimanouskaya depart.
The International Olympic Committee earlier said it had spoken to Tsimanouskaya and that she was being accompanied by a Tokyo 2020 staff member at the airport.
"She has told us she feels safe," the IOC said in a Twitter post.
It added the IOC and Tokyo 2020 would continue their conversations with Tsimanouskaya and the authorities "to determine the next steps in the upcoming days".
The incident on Sunday, first reported by Reuters, highlighted discord in Belarus, a former Soviet state that is run with a tight grip by President Alexander Lukashenko. In power since 1994, he faced a wave of protests last year, which some athletes joined.
Tsimanouskaya said coaching staff had come to her room on Sunday and told her to pack. She said she was then taken to Haneda airport by representatives of the Belarusian Olympic team.
But she refused to board the flight, telling Reuters in a message over Telegram: "I will not return to Belarus."
The Belarusian Olympic Committee said in a statement coaches had decided to withdraw Tsimanouskaya from the Games on doctors' advice about her "emotional, psychological state".
The committee did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
Earlier, a Reuters photographer saw the athlete standing next to police at the airport. "I think I am safe," Tsimanouskaya said. "I am with the police."
In a video published on Telegram by the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, Tsimanouskaya asked the IOC to get involved in her case.
A source at the foundation, which supports athletes jailed or sidelined for their political views, said Tsimanouskaya planned to request asylum in Germany or Austria on Monday.
The foundation's head, former Olympic swimmer Aliaksandra Herasimenia, told Reuters Tsimanouskaya could also be receiving assistance from Poland.
"We appealed to a number of countries for help," said Herasimenia, a three-time Olympic medallist. "But the first that reacted was the Polish consulate. We are ready to accept their help."
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Post by Admin on Aug 2, 2021 19:17:40 GMT
Belarus athlete who refused to fly home is granted Polish visa Krystsina Tsimanouskaya filmed arriving at Polish embassy in Tokyo as husband flees to Ukraine The Belarus Olympic athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya has received a humanitarian visa from Poland after she was threatened with being repatriated to Minsk over her criticism of Olympic team officials. Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Marcin Przydacz, wrote on Twitter on Monday that the Belarusian sprinter was in direct contact with Polish diplomats and had been granted a humanitarian visa to the country, where she is expected to fly later this week. “Poland will do whatever is necessary to help her to continue her sporting career,” wrote Przydacz. On Monday, Tsimanouskaya’s husband, Arseniy Zdanevich, confirmed to Sky News that he had fled the country and was currently in Kyiv. “I didn’t think it would get this serious. I made the decision to leave without thinking twice,” he told the TV station. Tsimanouskaya, 24, was filmed arriving at the Polish embassy in Tokyo on Monday, where she is said to be seeking refuge from pressure by officials to return to Belarus. Dmitry Navosha, a sports journalist from Belarus and member of the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation (BSSF), said she would fly to Warsaw later this week. “She has already applied for political asylum in Poland,” Alexander Opeikin, the acting director of the BSSF, told the Russian-language broadcaster Current Time. “She is fine. She is managing well; it’s clear that this is a stressful situation not just for an athlete, but for any person under this kind of pressure. This is a young woman put under pressure by experienced officials.” The asylum application came hours after Tsimanouskaya was abruptly removed from competition after criticising her coaches for “negligence”. She wrote on Instagram that they had failed to secure the necessary doping tests for her fellow athletes and then entered her “behind [her] back” into the 4x400m relay.
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Post by Admin on Aug 3, 2021 5:30:48 GMT
A leaked audio recording captures the conversation between Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya and two of her country's track-and-field officials.
Artur Shumak, the deputy director of Belarus's National Track-and-Field Olympic Training Center, and Yury Maisevich, the head coach of the Belarusian Olympic track-and-field team, can be heard telling her to leave the Olympic Games in Tokyo because of her comments on social media.
Tsimanouskaya refused to return to Belarus and was later seen entering the Polish Embassy in Tokyo. The sportswoman has confirmed to Current Time the authenticity of her voice in the leaked recording. (Audio from Telegram/@nic_and_mike)
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Post by Admin on Aug 3, 2021 19:56:36 GMT
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has launched an investigation into the case of the sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya and demanded Belarus respond on Tuesday to allegations that officials tried to bundle her on a flight back to Minsk for her criticism on social media. Tsimanouskaya has received a humanitarian visa to Poland after saying she was threatened by team officials for going public with her complaints about their “negligence”. She had appealed to the IOC from Haneda airport to intervene in her case before appealing to police for protection. An IOC spokesperson, Mark Adams, said that the organisation had demanded Belarus deliver a report on the incident by the end of Tuesday. “We want [the report] today. We have decided to launch a formal investigation. We need to establish the full facts. We need to hear everyone involved.” The IOC could sanction or even suspend the Belarus National Olympic Committee (NOC) over the incident, though it is not certain that a decision would come during the games. “That obviously can take time. We need to get to the bottom of it. How long that will take I do not know,” Adams told reporters. The Belarusian government has signalled that it will defend a decision to remove Tsimanouskaya from the games, claiming that she had an emotional breakdown. But the emergence of leaked audio showing a Belarusian official threatening Tsimanouskaya would prove especially damning if accepted as genuine by the IOC. The Belarus NOC could not immediately be reached for comment and it is not clear that it will deliver a report by the IOC deadline. Several activist groups, including those representing Belarusian athletes, have called on the IOC to suspend the Belarus NOC. On Monday, the activist group Global Athlete wrote: “If the IOC stands for human rights, anything less than a suspension is a gross abdication of their duty of care to athletes.” Last year, the IOC suspended the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, from the games and all Olympic activities for failing to protect athletes from political discrimination. He had previously led the Belarus NOC for 23 years. In March, the body refused to recognise his son Viktor as the new head of the Olympic committee. Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus since 1994, has launched a broad crackdown on opposition in the country following protests over disputed elections that handed him his sixth consecutive term in power. Dozens of athletes and coaches have been punished with suspensions for supporting the protests and some have faced jail time. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also attacked Belarus’s attempt to send Tsimanouskaya home.
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