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The Czech Republic offered asylum on Monday to a Belarusian Olympian who said her team tried to force her to leave Japan, as activists said she was seeking refuge in Poland.
Sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya, 24, spent the night in a Japanese airport hotel after asking Tokyo Olympics officials to help her avoid being put on a return flight to Belarus.
She was supposed to be at the Olympic Stadium on Monday competing in the 200-meter events, but has instead been the subject of intense diplomatic wrangling over her future.
Czech Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek said his country was ready to welcome the athlete.
“The Japanese authorities have just confirmed to us that Belarusian athlete Kryscina Tsimanouskaya has received our offer of asylum,” he said on Twitter, using a different spelling of his name.
“If she decides to accept it, we will help her as much as possible. The Olympics are not about politics, the methods of the (President Alexander) Lukashenko regime are absolutely shameful,” he said.
Meanwhile, activists from an NGO that supports Belarusian opposition athletes said Timanovskaya was trying to get to Poland.
“Kristina Timanovskaya has submitted documents to obtain political asylum in Poland,” Alexandr Opeikin, executive director of the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Fund, told AFP.
“She’s fine, she’s holding up well. It’s clearly a stressful situation not only for the athletes but for anyone under such pressure.”
On Sunday, the country’s deputy foreign minister said Poland was “ready to help” and offered Timanovskaya a humanitarian visa.
Japanese and International Olympic Committee officials said the athlete was safe and communicating with authorities.
“She assured us and assured us that she felt safe. She spent the night in an airport hotel in a safe and secure environment,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams told reporters. in Tokyo.
He added that the IOC “would speak to her again this morning, to understand … what she wants to pursue, and we will give her our support in this decision”.
UNHCR officials have been implicated in the affair, he added. Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Justice as well as local police declined to comment.
“I am under pressure”
Timanovskaya claimed overnight that his team were trying to send her home after criticizing the Belarusian athletics federation for signing her up for a relay race in Tokyo without giving her notice.
“It turns out that our big bosses have always decided everything for us,” she said in an Instagram story video that is no longer available.
In a later Instagram post, she added that she would not have “reacted so harshly if I had been warned in advance, explained the whole situation and asked if I was able to run 400 meters.”
“But they decided to do everything behind my back,” she added.
Overnight, BSSF said officials of the Belarusian team attempted to “expel” Timanovskaya.
And in a video, the athlete called on the IOC to intervene in his case, warning: “I am under pressure and they are trying to get me out of the country without my consent.”
Belarusian state television criticized Timanovskaya, with the channel presenter saying she “turned her stay in Tokyo into a grand scandal.”
Adams said the IOC had requested a full written account of the incident from the Belarusian Olympic committee, adding that the IOC had taken a series of actions against the committee in recent months.
The contested re-election of Belarusian President Lukashenko to a sixth term last August has led to the most serious political crisis in the country’s modern history, with protesters taking to the streets and authorities suppressing the opposition.
In December, the IOC banned Lukashenko and his eldest son Viktor from competing in the Olympics due to the targeting of athletes by the Belarusian Olympic committee for their political views.
Then, in March, the IOC refused to recognize Viktor Lukashenko’s leadership in the Belarusian NOC when he took over from his father, who had held the post since 1967.
Viktor Lukashenko was banned from attending the Olympics, along with a member of the executive board of the country’s Olympic Committee and several government officials.
A number of Belarusian athletes supported Lukashenko’s criticisms and demanded an end to the crackdown.
The turmoil also led to Belarus being stripped of the rights to host this year’s ice hockey world championship.
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