by Conan Simmons – August 2, 2021 – 5:37 am
As the world watches the Olympic Games, delayed from 2020, hosted by Tokyo, Japan one thing you won’t see on your screen is Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya running in the 200 meter dash and the 4×400 meter relay.
The reason, as officially stated by Belarus state media, is her “emotional, psychological state”. You know, the kind of thing that so many criticized U.S. gymnast Simone Biles for after she felt her body wasn’t doing what she needed it to do in order to compete. The difference here is Tsimanouskaya did not make the decision to leave the competition. That order was made by the Belarus National Olympic Committee.
Why?
Because 24 year old Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was, unbeknownst to her, entered to race in the 4×400 meter relay, a race that she has not run. When she took to Instagram to gripe about how her coaches did not prepare her for the event the powers that be guiding the Belarus National Olympic Committee sought to shut her up and literally send her packing back to Belarus.
The reason for the unexpected entry into the 4×400 relay is because the other athletes that were scheduled for the event failed to have their required drug tests completed in time and therefore never flew to Japan. Tsimanouskaya, in spite of making critical remarks on Instagram, was still willing to compete in the race. However, on Sunday her coaches came to her room in the Olympic Village, forced her to pack, and escorted her to the airport with the intention of putting her on a plane to Istanbul en route to Minsk, the capitol of Belarus. Tsimanouskaya managed to make contact with Japanese police at the airport and refused to board the flight.
Now, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya is safely refuged in the Polish embassy in Tokyo. This after several hours of sorting out her best options in light of the situation. Initially it was rumored that she would seek refuge with either Germany or Austria, then Poland and the Czech Republic offered sanctuary.
In a message on social media Tsimanouskaya claims “The head coach came over to me and said there had been an order from above to remove me.” She continued, “I was put under pressure and they are trying to forcibly take me out of the country without my consent.”
Many reporters on the scene described the escorting of Tsimanouskaya by Belarusian team authorities as looking like a “kidnapping”.
In a video leaked online a conversation can be heard between Tsimanouskaya and Belarus head coach, Yuri Moisevich. In the conversation Moisevich can be heard telling Tsimanouskaya “Just shut up”, “Just be quiet”, “Submit”, “You’re like a fly in a spiderweb, the more you jerk around the worse you get entangled.”
The official word from Belarus is that Tsimanouskaya has been removed from competition on advice from doctor’s citing her “emotional, psychological state”. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya on the other hand claims she has not been examined by doctors and her removal is due to her criticizing the coaches. Tsimanouskaya did compete on the first day of track and field events running in the first-round heat of 100 meters placing fourth with a timing of 11.47 seconds. She did not advance.
The International Olympic Committee has been in a dispute with the Belarus National Olympic Committee since before the Olympics began this year. The dispute is largely about the IOC banning Viktor Lukashenko from the games due to numerous infractions. Viktor Lukashenko is the head of the Belarus National Olympic Committee and the son of Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus since 1994. Both Lukashenko’s are well known for targeting athletes who criticize authority along with anyone else they deem a threat to their authoritarian rule.
Many Belarusian athletes were prevented from participating in the Olympic games after voicing support for the protests last August against the corrupt presidential election that kept Lukashenko in power after more than 25 years. Nearly 500 supporters of the protests are currently being detained in the small country which is sandwiched between Russia and Poland to the east and west, and Lithuania and Ukraine to the north and south.
Belarus made international headlines back in May when it hijacked a plane from Ryanair that was on a flight pattern from Greece to Lithuania. The Lukashenko regime sent a MiG-29 fighter jet to intercept the passenger plane forcing it to detour and land in Belarus. After disembarking all 126 passengers the Belarusian government arrested journalist Roman Protasevich along with his girlfriend Sofia Sapega on charges of being a “right-wing” extremist and organizing the 2020 protests. Roman Protasevich had left the country in 2019 and had no intention of returning to Belarus at any time since.
Three other passengers on the plane mysteriously chose to stay in the country after the forced landing. The intelligence community has since pegged the three as spies working for the Lukashenko regime.
CEO of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, has called the forced landing incident carried out by Belarus “a case of state-sponsored hijacking”.