Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya said to herself ” safe “ Sunday 1er August after saying she was forced to give up participating in the Tokyo Olympics and threatened with a forced departure from Japan for criticizing her federation on social networks.
This incident is part of the policy of repression led by the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Opponents, journalists and activists are targeted, with the aim of definitively putting down the historic protest movement of 2020 triggered by the re-election of the Belarusian head of state for a fifth term.
“I am safe and we are in the process of deciding where I am going to spend this night”The athlete said in a statement posted on Telegram messaging shortly after 5 p.m. by the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation, adding that she was in a police station at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo. “The IOC [le Comité international olympique] and Tokyo-2020 [le comité d’organisation des JO] spoke directly to Krystsina Tsymanouskaya this evening. She is with the authorities at Haneda Airport and she is accompanied by a member of the Tokyo-2020 team. She told us she felt safe ”, the IOC confirmed on Twitter.
Victim of pressure
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, 24, said earlier that she was forced to give up participating in the Tokyo Olympics by Belarusian team coach Yuri Moiseyevich, before being accompanied to the airport by committee officials Belarusian National Olympic Games with a view to returning her to her country.
The athlete fiercely criticized the Belarusian Athletics Federation this week, claiming that she was forced to compete in the 4 × 400-meter relay, when she was initially supposed to run the 100-meter and the 200-meter, as two other athletes were not had not carried out a sufficient number of doping controls, she said.
“Why do we have to pay for your mistakes? (…) It’s arbitrary ”, she had rebelled in a post on Instagram. “I would never have reacted so harshly if I had been told in advance, explained the whole situation and asked if I was able to run a 400 meters. But we decided to do everything behind my back ”, she wrote in a separate publication.
“I was told that I had to leave so that everyone was quiet and continued to compete”, she said on Sunday 1er August in an interview with online media by.tribuna.com. “I ask the International Olympic Committee to help me, I was pressured and they are trying to get me out of the country without my consent”, launched the Belarusian athlete in a video on Instagram, insisting that “The IOC intervenes”. She said she was not afraid of being excluded from the national team. “I’m afraid that I could be put in jail [en Biélorussie] “, she said.
The IOC is studying the situation
The Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation, which revealed the case on Sunday, said for its part that it had asked the Japanese police to prevent this departure. The Foundation then assured that the young woman had been placed under police protection and that a representative of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs would go to the airport to meet her. “The IOC has seen the articles in the media, is studying the situation and asked for explanations from the Belarusian National Olympic Committee”an IOC spokesperson told AFP.
According to the Belarusian Olympic Committee, headed by Viktor Lukashenko, son of President Alexander Lukashenko, the sportswoman had to suspend her participation in the Olympic Games on “Decision of the doctors, because of his emotional and psychological state”. A declaration immediately qualified as ” lie “ by the athlete in front of the press at the airport.
The 2020 protest movement in Belarus, which for months brought together tens of thousands of demonstrators, including well-known sportsmen, had been subdued by mass arrests, sometimes torture, and forced exile for its leaders .
In May, Belarusian authorities arrested exiled opposition journalist Roman Protassevich by hijacking the airliner he was on, sparking international outrage.