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Japan shelters Belarusian sprinter who sought to flee at the Olympics
TOKYO — A Belarusian sprinter was under the protection of Japanese authorities Monday, a day after she made a dash for freedom at a Tokyo-area airport, claiming her team was forcing her to return home after she publicly criticized her coaches at the Olympics.
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© Provided by NBC NewsThe sprinter, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, sought the protection of Japanese police at Haneda Airport on Sunday after she refused to board a flight to Minsk, the International Olympic Committee and Japanese authorities confirmed.
“They are trying to get me out of the country without my permission,” Tsimanouskaya, 24, said in a videotape posted online by the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, or BSSF, a dissident athletic organization.
The IOC confirmed in a tweet Sunday that Tsimanouskaya “is with the authorities at Haneda airport.”
“She has told us she feels safe,” it said.
The Polish government was the first to offer Tsimanouskaya a safe haven.
“She was offered a humanitarian visa and is free to pursue her sporting career in Poland if she so chooses,” Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Marcin Przydacz said on Twitter.
The Czechs also offered to take in Tsimanouskaya, and the BSSF said she may seek asylum in Germany or Austria.
Tsimanouskaya’s escape, which was first reported by Reuters, came as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has been widely criticized for his brutal crackdown on political opponents trying to remove him from an office he has held since 1964.
The president of Belarus’ Olympic committee is Lukashenko’s son Victor.
The National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Belarus and the Belarusian Consulate in Tokyo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on the IOC to protect the sprinter and accused the Lukashenko regime of trying to “kidnap” her, likening the airport incident to the forced landing in May of a Ryanair jet in Minsk to arrest the dissident journalist Roman Protashevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega.
Tsimanouskaya, who ran in the women’s 100-meter heats Friday, was supposed to run in the 200-meter heats Monday and the 4x400-meter relay Thursday. She said she got in trouble with her coaches after she complained on Instagram that she was being to made to run the relay after other members of the team were deemed ineligible to compete at the Olympics because they not undergone all the doping tests.
"Some of our girls did not fly here to compete in the 4x400-meter relay because they didn't have enough doping tests," Tsimanouskaya told Reuters at the airport. "And the coach added me to the relay without my knowledge. I spoke about this publicly. The head coach came over to me and said there had been an order from above to remove me."
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