Even without completing her 200-meter heat on Monday, Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya had the run of her life.
Or maybe even a run for her life.
First Tsimanouskaya rightly complained on Instagram about the last-minute decision to put her in the 4×400-meter relay, an event she had not trained for, after a teammate did not qualify because she hadn’t taken enough anti-doping tests. Then Belarusian Olympic officials tried to hustle Tsimanouskaya out of Tokyo, citing her “emotional and psychological condition.”
Via social media — a medium she deployed effectively in alerting the world to her harrowing plight — Tsimanouskaya said this was “a lie.” Instead, she said in a video that went viral that “I was put under pressure, and they are trying to forcibly take me out of the country without my consent, so I am asking the (International Olympic Committee) to intervene.”
So the IOC, along with Japanese authorities, did just that at Tokyo’s airport. In fact the IOC had already said the Belarus Olympic Committee hadn’t shielded its athletes from political discrimination. And it refused to recognize Viktor Lukashenko, son of the nation’s repressive President Alexander Lukashenko, as head of the Belarus Olympic Committee.
The elder Lukashenko, often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator,” has cruelly ruled Belarus for 27 years. And it looks like he intends to be president for life, at least based on the 2020 presidential election, which Western experts and everyday Belarusians believe he stole.
The mass protests that understandably ensued were met with a brutal crackdown, with widespread arrests and reports of torture. The authoritarianism become even more brazen in May when Lukashenko ordered a MiG-29 fighter jet to force a civilian aircraft to land in Minsk in order to arrest an opposition journalist, Raman Pratasevich. Even more recently, Lukashenko said of the country’s convulsion that “if it is necessary, we won’t hesitate” to ask Russian troops to intervene.
Reflecting the humanitarian solidarity the Olympics ideally represent, top politicians from Slovenia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Poland reached out with offers to provide safe harbor for Tsimanouskaya, who headed to Warsaw on a humanitarian visa. While her husband, who had already fled to Ukraine, will join her, Tsimanouskaya has expressed fears for her family still in Belarus.
One of the many attributes of the Games is that the Olympic flame can shine a light on global issues that are often obscured. Such was the case with Tsimanouskaya, who showed as much grit in fighting a dictatorship that she hoped to show on the track.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
