Belarus: Ministry of Sport prohibits participation in international competitions

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Kristina Timanowskaja after fleeing to Poland

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Marcin Bielecki / EPA

100 athletes from Belarus officially took part in the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Seven medals jumped out of it, a disappointing result for a team of this size, Belarus never did worse at summer games.

Nevertheless, Belarusian sport dominated the headlines for days.

The case of Kristina Timanowskaja, who fled to Poland, showed how great the fear of dictator Alexander Lukashenko is in sports.

The sprinter had expressed criticism of her supervisors in Tokyo and was therefore supposed to be brought back to Minsk - and decided to live in exile for fear of reprisals.

Timanovskaya is not the first athlete to decide to leave her homeland.

This also included the decathlete Andrej Krautschanka, who now lives in Germany.

The 35-year-old was now the first athlete from Belarus to make an instruction from the Ministry of Sports public.

Krautschanka reported on Instagram that his former colleagues from Belarus are no longer allowed to take part in international competitions with immediate effect.

Aleksandra Herasimenia, chairwoman of the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation (BSSF) and, as a swimmer, a silver medalist at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, confirmed the travel ban to SPIEGEL.

"Several athletes from various sports have contacted us," says Herasimenia.

"You were informed of this decision by your associations and coaches via SMS."

The goal is complete control

According to information from the BSSF, Minister of Sport Sergei Kovalchuk signed the ordinance last Wednesday not to finance trips to commercial tournaments and training camps abroad for Belarusian athletes.

How long the regulation should apply is unclear.

"There are a lot of questions," says Herasimenia.

None of the athletes understand what is happening, there is only this arrangement, no answers to questions.

This is how Krautschanka had described it.

The regulation applies to all sports.

But what exactly the Ministry understands by commercial tournaments is unclear.

According to the BSSF, participation in European and World Championships should be excluded, participation in events abroad would now generally have to be registered.

For Herasimenia this is "a measure to want to fully control the athletes - even after the fall of Timanovskaya".

The regime wants to control which athletes are abroad when and where.

There should be no further protests by prominent athletes in the future.

Alexander Apeikin, director of the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, says he believes the regulation could also have financial reasons. "The regime is running out of money."