Belarus sprinter says punishment awaited her back home

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MOSCOW – A Belarusian Olympic sprinter who had a nationalist feud with officials from her squad astatine the Tokyo Games said Tuesday that they “made it clear” she would look punishment if she returned location to an autocratic authorities that has relentlessly stifled immoderate criticism.

Waiting to permission Japan to question refuge successful Europe, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya said she hopes she tin proceed her career, but for present her information is the priority. After she criticized the absorption of her squad connected societal media, she accused officials of hustling her to the airdrome and trying to enactment her connected a level backmost to Belarus.

In the melodramatic standoff, respective countries offered help, and Poland granted her a humanitarian visa Monday. She planned to alert to Warsaw and was seen successful Tokyo connected Wednesday greeting entering Narita International Airport surrounded by an entourage.

Team officials “made it wide that, upon instrumentality home, I would decidedly look immoderate signifier of punishment,” the 24-year-old sprinter told The Associated Press successful a videocall interrogation from Tokyo. “There were besides thinly disguised hints that much would await me.”

She added that she believed she would beryllium kicked disconnected the nationalist team. She hopes to beryllium capable to proceed moving erstwhile she has reached safety.

“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,” she said. But "for now, the lone happening that concerns maine is my safety.”

Asked what made her fearfulness she would beryllium successful information astatine home, Tsimanouskaya said that “the cardinal operation was that ‘we didn’t marque the determination for you to spell home, it was decided by different people, and we were simply ordered to marque it happen.’”

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

Earlier, Belarus’ National Olympic Committee told a state-run quality bureau that it was intimately monitoring the concern and cooperating with the International Olympic Committee.

In the 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.

“It was each precise sudden. I lone had an hr to cod my things," Zdanevich said from Ukraine, wherever helium said helium feels harmless adjacent though constabulary are investigating whether a Belarus activist's decease determination was murder. He hopes to articulation his woman successful Poland, which is location to a important Belarusian community.

The couple's fears bespeak the lengths the Belarus’ authoritarian authorities has astatine times gone to successful its crackdown connected dissent, including recently diverting a level to the superior of Minsk and arresting a writer aboard. President Alexander Lukashenko maintained that a weaponry menace against the formation forced it to alteration course, but European officials denounced the determination arsenic an enactment of aerial piracy.

Lukashenko appears to person a peculiar involvement successful his country’s Olympic team: He and his son, Viktor, person led the Belarus National Olympic Committee for much than 25 years. Both were banned from the Tokyo Games by the IOC, which investigated complaints from athletes that they faced intimidation during the crackdown connected anti-government protests implicit the past year.

The existent standoff began aft Tsimanouskaya’s disapproval of however officials were managing her squad acceptable disconnected a monolithic backlash successful state-run media backmost home, wherever the authorities has cracked down connected dissent since a statesmanlike predetermination a twelvemonth agone triggered a question of unprecedented wide protests.

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.

Tsimanouskaya waged — and mislaid — a ineligible combat to tally successful that event. The Court of Arbitration for Sport said successful a connection that it denied Tsimanouskaya’s petition for an interim ruling that would person allowed her to tally astatine the Olympic Stadium connected Monday. The heats were held successful the greeting and the semifinals were successful the evening.

On Tuesday, Tsimanouskaya called connected planetary sports authorities “to analyse the situation, who gave the order, who really took the determination that I can’t vie immoderate more.” She suggested imaginable “sanctions against the caput manager who approached maine and who deprived maine of the close to vie successful the Olympic Games.”

At the aforesaid time, she said that “the athletes aren’t blameworthy of anything, and they should support competing.”

Athletes seeking asylum astatine planetary sporting events is thing caller — specified requests were particularly predominant during the Cold War but they person besides happened occasionally successful the decades since.

But Tsimanouskaya’s circumstances look to disagree from the emblematic situation, though some, including her caput coach, person suggested she was readying thing each along. Tsimanouskaya dismissed that, saying she lone spoke retired erstwhile she learned she would beryllium participating successful an lawsuit she had ne'er competed in.

“Everything that is happening present perfectly wasn’t successful my plans,” Tsimanouskaya said.

European leaders person condemned her treatment. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told the regular Rheinische Post that “the rulers successful Minsk person shown with their attempted kidnapping of Krystsina Tsimanouskaya that they scorn their ain athletes and with this besides the Olympic principles.”

Maas called Lukashenko’s authorities “politically and morally bankrupt,” adding that the overwhelming enactment for the sprinter showed that “the tone of relationship and respect is alive. Sportsmanship and solidarity are stronger than the unit which Mr. Lukashenko uses to cling to power.”

Still, the jock declined to nexus her problems to the larger conflict successful Belarus.

“I don’t privation to get progressive successful politics," she said. "For me, my vocation is important, lone sports is important, and I’m lone reasoning astir my future, astir however I tin proceed my career.”

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Associated Press writers James Ellingworth and Graham Dunbar successful Tokyo, Kirsten Grieshaber successful Berlin and Yuras Karmanau successful Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

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More connected AP's sum of Belarus: https://apnews.com/hub/Belarus

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