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Kristina Timanowskaja after fleeing Warsaw in 2021: "I had to sacrifice everything"
Photo: Andrzej Lange / dpa
Belarusian sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya has acquired Polish citizenship.
The 25-year-old explained this in a post on Instagram.
"Now officially Polish," she wrote there.
"Sometimes you have to sacrifice something to get back on the podium," wrote Timanovskaya.
»I had to sacrifice everything that I had built up in Belarus over 24 years, I had to leave my family there, my job, my friends, my home.«
She hasn't ended her career yet and doesn't intend to.
"I will not forget Belarus and will not stop helping those in need," wrote Timanovskaya.
She had already told the Russian broadcaster RBC last August that she wanted to apply for Polish citizenship.
»Long live Belarus!
Thank you, Poland«
Even if, as a Pole, she stands on a winner's podium again, the medal will be "for all Belarusians and for our freedom."
»Long live Belarus!
Thank you, Poland,” wrote the athlete.
Timanovskaya's specialty is the 200-meter sprint.
Her biggest success was the silver medal at the U23 European Championships in Poland in 2017.
Last year, Timanovskaya was almost kidnapped at the Tokyo Olympics.
After publicly criticizing Belarusian sports officials, she was taken to the airport by the national team representatives, where she sought protection from the Japanese police.
"I'm afraid that they might put me in prison in Belarus," she told the Sport-Telegram Tribunal at the time.
Timanovskaya fled to Warsaw, where she lived with her husband under personal protection.
SPIEGEL met Timanovskaya there in September 2021. Read the text here.
When she took part in a competition for the first time after the Olympics, in mid-August 2021 in Szczecin, Poland, she posed with the white-red-white flag of the Belarusian opposition.
On another occasion, she sat next to exiled politician Pavel Latuschko, a former diplomat and culture minister, a political challenger to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Because of his authoritarian methods, Lukashenko is considered a dictator.
After the presidential election on August 9, 2020, which was widely considered to be fraudulent, mass demonstrations against Lukashenko broke out in the ex-Soviet Republic of Belarus.
Athletes were also affected by the government's massive crackdown on members of the opposition and dissidents.
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