Belarus Olympic sprinter arrives in Vienna amid safety fears

3 years ago 327

MOSCOW – A level carrying a Belarusian Olympic sprinter seeking refuge landed successful Austria connected Wednesday aft she resisted an effort by her Olympic team’s officials to nonstop her home, wherever she feared reprisals from the authoritarian government.

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya boarded a level astatine Tokyo’s Narita International Airport that near for Vienna, but she was expected to question connected to Poland, which has offered her a humanitarian visa. Before leaving Japan, the 24-year-old Tsimanouskaya said she hoped she could proceed her moving vocation but that information was her contiguous priority.

Her hubby fled the state rapidly this week erstwhile helium realized that his woman would not beryllium returning to Belarus.

Vienna Airport said the nonstop formation that Tsimanouskaya boarded landed Wednesday astatine 3:08 p.m. (1308 GMT). Vadim Krivosheyev, an activistic with the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, said Tsimanouskaya took the formation to Austria alternatively of Warsaw connected the proposal of Polish authorities.

"The determination to alteration the way and alert to Vienna was made by the Polish broadside for information reasons," Krivosheyev told The Associated Press.

Tsimanouskaya was expected to caput to Warsaw aboriginal Wednesday, according to Krivosheyev.

Tsimanouskaya's acquisition astatine the Tokyo Games became an planetary contented aft she accused Belarusian squad officials of hustling her to the airdrome respective days agone and trying to enactment her connected a level to Belarus due to the fact that she had criticized the team's absorption connected societal media. The squad officials said she would look reprisals backmost home, she said.

The officials “made it wide that, upon instrumentality home, I would decidedly look immoderate signifier of punishment,” Tsimanouskaya told the AP successful a videocall from Tokyo connected Tuesday. “There were besides thinly disguised hints that much would await me.”

She added that she believed she would beryllium kicked disconnected Belarus' nationalist team.

“I would precise overmuch similar to proceed my sporting vocation due to the fact that I’m conscionable 24, and I had plans for 2 much Olympics astatine least,” Tsimanouskaya said. But “for now, the lone happening that concerns maine is my safety.”

Reached by telephone Tuesday, Dzmitry Dauhalionak, the caput of Belarus’ delegation astatine the Summer Olympics, declined comment, saying that helium has “no words.”

Tsimanouskaya’s disapproval of however officials were managing her squad acceptable disconnected a monolithic backlash successful state-run media successful Belarus. The runner said connected Instagram that she was enactment successful the 4x400 relay adjacent though she has ne'er raced successful the event. She was past barred from competing successful the 200 meters.

The sprinter called connected planetary sports authorities Tuesday “to analyse the situation, who gave the order, who really took the determination that I can’t vie anymore.” She suggested imaginable sanctions against the caput coach.

In the AP interview, Tsimanouskaya besides expressed interest for her parents, who stay successful Belarus. Her husband, Arseni Zdanevich, told the AP that helium decided to permission the state erstwhile Tsimanouskaya told him she wasn’t coming back.

Belarus was rocked by months of protests aft President Alexander Lukashenko was awarded a sixth word successful an August 2020 statesmanlike predetermination that the absorption and the West saw arsenic rigged. Authorities responded to demonstrations with a sweeping crackdown that saw implicit 35,000 radical arrested and thousands beaten by police.

In a amusement of determination to stifle dissent astatine immoderate cost, Belarus authorities diverted a rider level that was flying from Greece to Lithuania successful May and ordered it to onshore successful the Belarusian capital, wherever they arrested an absorption writer connected board.

Amid Tsimanouskaya's rift with squad officials, 2 different Belarusian athletes announced their volition to enactment abroad.

Heptathlete Yana Maksimava said she and her hubby Andrei Krauchanka, who won metallic successful the decathlon astatine the 2008 Beijing Olympics, would stay successful Germany.

“I'm not readying to instrumentality location aft each the events that happened successful Belarus,” Maksimava said connected Instagram, adding that “you tin suffer not conscionable your state but besides your life” successful her homeland.

The authoritarian Belarusian president, who led the Belarus National Olympic Committee for astir a quarter-century earlier handing implicit the occupation to his older lad successful February, has shown a keen involvement successful sports, seeing it arsenic a cardinal constituent of nationalist prestige.

Both Lukashenko and his lad were banned from the Tokyo Games by the International Olympic Committee, which investigated complaints from athletes that they faced intimidation during the crackdown connected anti- authorities protests implicit the past year.

Western leaders person condemned Tsimanouskaya's attraction by Belarusian authorities.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced Belarusian officials' effort to unit Tsimanouskaya to instrumentality to Belarus for exercising escaped code arsenic “another enactment of transnational repression.”

“Such actions interruption the Olympic spirit, are an affront to basal rights, and cannot beryllium tolerated,” Blinken said connected Twitter.

___

Follow AP’s sum of Belarus astatine https://apnews.com/hub/belarus

___ Isachenkov reported from Moscow. Associated Press writers Yuras Karmanau successful Kyiv, Ukraine and Frank Jordans successful Berlin contributed to this report.

Read Entire Article