Belarusian Athlete Who Fled 2021 Olympics Disavows Former Team As She Prepares To Compete For Poland

Former Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who escaped being forced to return to Minsk prematurely from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after she criticized her coaches, says she wants nothing to do with Belarusian athletes set to compete at the Paris Olympics.

"To represent today's Belarus at the Olympic Games in Paris means to represent today's Belarusian government," Tsimanouskaya told RFE/RL in an interview.

Tsimanouskaya, who is now a Polish citizen and will compete for her new country in Paris, said she will not approach Belarusian athletes in Paris because she does "not want to have anything to do either with the Belarusian government or the current national flag."

The International Olympic Committee is allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete only as neutrals at the Paris Olympics and as such they will not be allowed to display flags or emblems and their anthems will not be played. They also will be barred from taking part in the parade of athletes at the opening ceremony on July 26.

In addition, no teams from the two countries will be allowed, and no Russian or Belarusian government or state official has been invited or accredited. The number of Belarusian athletes at the games is expected to be very small.

Tsimanouskaya took refuge in August 2021 in the Polish Embassy in Tokyo after refusing to allow Belarusian team officials to force her onto a flight to Minsk after she voiced criticism of their coaching decisions.

She was granted a humanitarian visa by Poland and boarded a plane to Europe and reached Warsaw. She said at the time that she feared for her safety if she returned to Belarus.

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She told RFE/RL that the current national flag of Belarus would not be the one that she would raise if she were competing at the Olympics for her native country.

"I would like to raise the national flag of Belarus," she said, referring to the historical white and red flag that has been used by opposition groups for decades.

The flag, whose origins are in the short-lived Belarusian Democratic Republic in 1918-1920, was reinstated after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka replaced it one year after he came to power with a flag similar to the one used in Soviet times.

Tsimanouskaya said that after Russia launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, she stopped any contacts with the majority of Belarusian athletes, as they supported the war.

"There are only two people among the Belarusian national team with whom I can keep communicating," Tsimanouskaya said.

Tsimanouskaya also said that she is very grateful to Poland for everything the country has done for her and her family but emphasized that it's not easy for her to feel completely at home in Polish society due to peculiarities of culture and language.

Tsimanouskaya's plight at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 drew international attention to repression in Belarus a year after massive protests erupted when Lukashenka claimed victory in the presidential election in August 2020. The Belarusian opposition and many Western government say the election was rigged.

Lukashenka has moved to align Belarus closely with neighboring Russia, including allowing the Kremlin to stage military operations from Belarusian territory since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In addition to Tsimanouskaya, other Belarusian athletes and coaches have left the country.

In August 2021, a coach of the Vitsyaz handball club in Minsk, Kanstantsin Yakauleu, fled to Ukraine weeks after he served 15 days in jail for taking part in an anti-government rally.

Belarusian heptathlete Yana Maksimava and her husband, Andrey Krauchanka, who won an Olympic medal in 2008 in Beijing, also announced in 2021 that they had decided to stay in Germany with their child due to the ongoing crackdown in Belarus.