Belarusian Kristina Tsimanskaya will not return home after the Olympics

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A Belarusian Olympic athlete plans to seek asylum in Germany or Austria on Monday after her country’s Olympic committee tried to send her home over a complaint about her coaches.

Kristina Tsimanoskaya, 24, was scheduled to compete in the women’s 200 meters on Monday – before coaches came to her room on Sunday and told her to pack up.

“I will not go back to Belarus,” Tsimanoskaya told Reuters in a Telegram message after seeking protection from Japanese police.

“I think I’m safe,” she told a Reuters photographer who noticed her standing with local officers at Haneda Airport.

Belarusian athlete Kristina Tsimanoskaya escorts police officers at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, Japan.

The Belarusian Olympic Committee said in a statement that coaches had withdrawn Tsimanskaya from the Games because of her “emotional and psychological state”.

Tsimanoskaya complained about her entry into the 4x400m relay after some team members were found ineligible to compete in the Olympics because they had not undergone enough doping tests.

Kristina Tsimanoskaya said she will not return to Belarus after being forced to go to the airport against her will.

“Some of our girls didn’t travel here to compete in the 4x400m relay because they didn’t have enough doping tests,” Tsimanoskaya told Reuters from the airport.

“And the coach added me to the relay without my knowledge. I spoke about this publicly. The coach came up to me and said there was an order from above to remove me.”

Tsimanoskaya asked the IOC to intervene in her case in a video released by the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation.

Belarusian athlete Kristina Tsimanoskaya talks with a police officer at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, Japan, August 1, 2021. Reuters

Belarus has faced political chaos since disputed elections last August led to mass protests that were violently suppressed by dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

Unusually in a country where elite athletes often rely on government funding, some prominent Belarusian athletes have joined the protests.

Several of them were imprisoned, Olympic basketball player Jelena Lyushanka and decathlon player Andrei Krauchanka.

Follow all the action of the 2020 Olympic Games, Kristina Tsimanskaya appears inside a police box at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, Japan on August 1, 2021.

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