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Belarusian runner Tsimanuskaya: "Grandma warned me not to go home"
Zimanosskaya, who is currently in Poland, said that following her grandmother's warning, she decided to ask the police for help in rescuing her from the Tokyo airport, and thanks to that she managed to escape danger.
According to her, two of her coaches demanded that she return to Belarus immediately after criticizing the country's conduct in competitions.
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Belarus
Tokyo 2020
News agencies
Friday, 06 August 2021, 08:56 Updated: 09:25
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In an interview with the BBC network last night (Thursday), the Belarusian runner, Christina Tsimanuskaya, revealed that on her way to the airport from the Olympics in Tokyo, her grandmother warned her not to return to Israel.
Tsimanuskaya, whose coaches ordered her to return to Belarus after criticizing her coach, is now in Poland, where she has received a humanitarian visa.
According to political sources in Belarus, the athlete was expelled from the team "due to her mental condition", but she denies it.
This event is in addition to a series of state-sponsored adverse events, controlled by President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994. Last year, protests against his re-election, which was controversial, were violently suppressed.
In the mass demonstrations that took place in Belarus at the time, the security forces used violence to suppress, and thousands of people were arrested.
Some of the protesters were national-level athletes, whose funding was cut off and they were expelled from their teams and arrested.
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Tsimanuskaya (Photo: Reuters)
Tsimanuskaya was expelled from the Olympics after complaining on social media that she was put into a messenger race at short notice.
This, instead of members of her team, who were disqualified from the competition.
The video she uploaded provoked criticism in the state media.
One TV channel said she did not have a team spirit.
The runner said that two of her trainers then entered her room and told her to pack her things immediately and be ready to go home.
She was told to report that she was injured.
Tsimanuskaya said in an interview that her grandmother told her that she was worried because something bad might happen to her, following her viewing of local reports in Belarus.
"I could not believe that my grandmother told me not to go home. But I asked her, 'Are you sure?', And she said, 'Yes, I'm sure. Do not come back,'" she recalls.
The incident illustrates the complicated situation in Belarus.
Tsimanuskaya (Photo: Reuters)
She says that was the reason why she went to the police. At the airport the athlete showed police her phone, which translated to her request for help, in an attempt to prevent her from boarding the plane home. She was then given protection until she was transferred to the Polish Embassy in Tokyo, and on Wednesday flew to Poland.
Tsimanoskaya, however, insists she is not a "political figure" and just wants to concentrate on her sports career. "I do not understand anything in politics. I have never been there," he said. Tsimanuskaya told the BBC she wanted to return to Belarus, but it was too dangerous at the time.
Her husband also fled Belarus and received a Polish residence visa, but all the rest of her family remained in the country. She said her parents were "a little angry" and tried to avoid watching her reports. "They know me and my truth and what really happened," she says. She added that the support she received from people around the world strengthened me. "I want people in my country not to be afraid anymore," she concluded.
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