Belarus athlete subject of intense diplomatic wrangling
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, a Belarusian Olympic athlete who claimed her team tried to force her to leave Japan, will likely travel to Poland, her husband told AFP on Monday, adding he himself had left Belarus. She has been granted a humanitarian visa by the Warsaw government.
"She will likely go to Poland," Arseny Zdanevich told AFP from the Ukrainian capital Kiev where he said he had fled to.
He also said that he was hoping to join his wife "in the near future. "The 24-year-old sprinter spent the night in a Japanese airport hotel after asking Tokyo Olympics officials to help her avoid being put on a flight back to Belarus.
She was supposed to be in the Olympic Stadium on Monday, competing in the 200 metres heats, but was instead the subject of intense diplomatic wrangling over her future.
Tsimanouskaya walked into the Polish embassy, a day after refusing to board a flight in Tokyo that she said she was taken to against her wishes by her team.
In a brewing diplomatic incident on the sidelines of the Olympics, Tsimanouskaya's refusal to board the plane, first reported by Reuters, has thrown a harsh spotlight on discord in Belarus, a former Soviet state that is run with a tight grip by President Alexander Lukashenko.
The sprinter had her Games cut short when she said she was taken to the airport to board a Turkish Airlines flight. She told a Reuters reporter via Telegram that the Belarusian head coach had turned up at her room on Sunday at the athletes village and told her she had to leave.
But she refused to board the flight, telling Reuters: "I will not return to Belarus."
She then sought the protection of Japanese police at the airport.
Source: www.thedailystar.net
