Tokyo Olympics: Sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya seeks asylum in Poland amid standoff with Belarus

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, a Belarusian Olympic sprinter, plans to seek asylum in Poland, Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation said Monday, after the athlete alleged that her team’s officials tried to force her to fly home, where she feared she wouldn’t be safe from an autocratic government that recently was accused of diverting a plane in order to arrest a dissident journalist. She told a Reuters reporter via Telegram that the Belarusian head coach Yuri Moisevich had turned up at her room on Sunday at the athletes village and told her she had to leave. Moisevich was shown by Belarus’ state TV on Sunday, and confronted her statements. “I tried to calm her down, then I wished her good night and said that we would meet tomorrow and try to decide what and how we would do,“ he said.