Belarusian athlete Kristina Timanovskaya was offered a humanitarian visa by Poland after her country's officials tried to force her to take an early flight home from the Tokyo Olympics. Here she boards a flight Wednesday to Austria at Japan's Narita international Airport. Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images
Sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya, whose Olympic dream was derailed after authorities cracked down on her criticism of her coaches, left Tokyo on Wednesday on a flight to Vienna. She insists that her quibbles with her nation's Olympic delegation were only about sports — not politics.
"I love my country and I didn't betray my country," the 24-year-old athlete told the BBC. "This is about the mistakes that have been made by our officials at the Olympics."
Timanovskaya is traveling under a humanitarian visa offered by Poland, where she's expected to head next after arriving in Europe. She has said she fears retaliation if she returns to Belarus after her refusal to compete in an event for which she hadn't trained blossomed into a political firestorm.
The Belarusian Olympian will be reunited in Warsaw with her husband, who had already left Belarus and has also obtained a humanitarian visa, according to ORF, the Austrian broadcast network.
Sprinter was taken to the airport for an early flight home
On Sunday, the Belarus Olympic Committee said its coaches yanked Timanovskaya out of all of her events due to "her emotional and psychological state." It did not provide details.
But Timanovskaya said that after she balked at running in 4x400-meter relay qualifying races — and discussed the situation on Instagram — her team tried to force her to fly back to Belarus before she could compete in her event, the 200-meter sprint.
At the airport, Timanovskaya told CNN, she used a translation app on her phone to tell a police officer that she needed help. And instead of leaving Japan, she then hid out in a hotel under police protection and issued an open plea for international help.
Sports get wrapped into Belarus' politics
The dispute is the latest high-profile incident involving the regime of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who has been called Europe's last dictator. Belarus was widely criticized after it forced a plane carrying Roman Protasevich to land, so security officers could arrest the dissident journalist.
Mass protests have been mounted against Lukashenko, and some athletes have taken part — and been punished for their stances, according to the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation.
Timanovskaya's criticism of her coaches has been vilified on state media outlets. But Dmitry Navosha, founder of Belarusian sports outlet Tribuna, told NPR this week, "There wasn't an ounce of politics in her actions."
Still, sports and politics seem to be interwoven in Belarus. One year ago, hundreds of athletes and others in the sports community signed an open letter calling for last summer's elections to be declared fraudulent and for Lukashenko's regime to release political prisoners and cease intimidating the opposition.
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