Tsimanouskaya in Tokyo: a Ukrainian link to an Olympic standoff
A retrospective on the Belarusian sprinter's refuge at the Polish embassy and the role Ukraine played in her husband's journey.
What happens when an athlete refuses to board a flight home? On 3 August 2021, the question was still being answered in Tokyo, a day after Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya entered the Polish embassy there.
According to reports from 2 August 2021, Tsimanouskaya had refused to board a flight to Belarus at Haneda Airport and asked Japanese police for protection. She then went to the Polish embassy. The Japanese government said it would take measures to protect her stay in the country, and several European countries offered her asylum.
Ukraine appeared in the story through her family. Her husband had left Belarus and entered Ukraine, according to the same reports.
The episode unfolded at the Games in Tokyo, which had been postponed from 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and were held from 23 July to 8 August 2021. Belarus later competed at no further Summer Games: along with Russia, it was barred from the 2024 Paris Olympics because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Tokyo Games were therefore Belarus's last Summer Olympics appearance as a nation under that status, and its seventh consecutive in the post-Soviet era.
