Tokyo:
A Belarusian athlete who took refuge in the Polish embassy in Tokyo on Monday, a day soon after refusing her team’s orders to board a flight home from the Olympic Games, has been granted a humanitarian visa by the Warsaw government.
Sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya plans to leave for Poland in the coming days, a Polish deputy foreign minister, Marcin Przydacz, told Reuters.
She is “safe and in good condition” soon after walking into the embassy on Monday morning, he stated. Another deputy foreign minister, Pawel Jablonski, stated: “I can confirm that we have issued a humanitarian visa. I can confirm that we will provide all necessary support in Poland if she wishes to use it.”
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, 24, had been due to compete in the women’s 200 metre heats on Monday but stated that on Sunday she was taken to the airport to board a Turkish Airlines flight. She refused to board the flight, telling Reuters: “I will not return to Belarus.” The incident has place renewed consideration on the political discord in Belarus, a former Soviet state that is run by President Alexander Lukashenko. Police there have cracked down on dissent following a wave of protests triggered by an election last year which the opposition says was rigged to maintain him in energy. The athlete pulled up in front of the Polish embassy in an unmarked silver van about 5 pm neighborhood time (0800 GMT). She stepped out with her official group luggage, and then greeted two officials ahead of getting into the premises. Two ladies, one carrying the red and white flag seen as the symbol of opposition in Belarus, came to the gates to help her. Her husband, Arseni Zhdanevich, will join her in Poland, a Warsaw-based Belarusian opposition politician stated. “Thanks to the support of the Belarusian Athletes’ Solidarity Foundation, (Tsimanouskaya’s) husband is in Kiev and he will join Krystsina,” Pavel Latushko told Reuters. Zhdanevich had currently entered Ukraine, a Ukrainian interior ministry supply stated. Tsimanouskaya told a Reuters reporter by means of Telegram that the Belarusian head coach had turned up at her area on Sunday at the athletes’ village and told her she had to leave. “The head coach came over to me and said there had been an order from above to remove me,” she wrote in the message.
“At 5 (pm) they came to my room and told me to pack and they took me to the airport.”
But she refused to board and sought the protection of Japanese police. Tsimanouskaya stated she had been removed from the group as she had spoken out about what she described as the negligence of their coaches. She had complained on Instagram that she was entered in the 4×400 m relay soon after some group members have been discovered to be ineligible to compete at the Olympics since they had not undergone adequate doping tests. “And the coach added me to the relay without my knowledge,” Tsimanouskaya stated.
The Belarusian Olympic Committee stated coaches had decided to withdraw Tsimanouskaya from the Games on doctors’ suggestions about her “emotional, psychological state”. Belarus athletics head coach Yuri Moisevich told state tv he “could see there was something wrong with her. She either secluded herself or didn’t want to talk”.
Earlier on Monday, International Olympic Committee spokesperson Mark Adams stated officials would continue conversations with Tsimanouskaya and had asked for a complete report from the Belarus Olympic committee. The Japanese government stated she had been kept secure when Tokyo 2020 organisers and the IOC checked her intentions.”
Japan is coordinating with relevant parties and continues to take appropriate action,” stated chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato.
The United States ambassador to Belarus, Julie Fisher, stated Lukashenko’s government had attempted to discredit and humiliate Tsimanouskaya for expressing her views, and she praised the Japanese and Polish authorities for their swift action.The IOC spokesperson also stated it had taken a quantity of actions against Belarus’ Olympic Committee in the run up to the Games following nationwide protests in the nation. In March, the IOC refused to recognise the election of Lukashenko’s son Viktor as head of the country’s Olympic Committee.
Both father and son have been banned from attending the Games in December.
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