Poland grants Belarus Olympic sprinter humanitarian visa

Poland has granted a humanitarian visa to Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, a Belarusian Olympic athlete who claimed her team tried to force her to leave Japan, Poland's deputy foreign minister said Monday.

Tsimanouskaya "is already in direct contact with Polish diplomats in Tokyo. She has received a humanitarian visa. Poland will do whatever is necessary to help her to continue her sporting career," Marcin Przydacz wrote on Twitter.

The sprinter, who was due to race in the 200 metre heats at Olympic Stadium on Monday, had her Games cut short when she said she was taken to the airport to board a Turkish Airlines flight.

She told a Reuters reporter via Telegram that the Belarusian head coach had turned up at her room on Sunday at the athletes' village and told her she had to leave.

"The head coach came over to me and said there had been an order from above to remove me," she wrote in the message. "At 5pm they came to my room and told me to pack and they took me to the airport."

But she refused to board the flight, telling Reuters: "I will not return to Belarus."

The Belarusian Olympic Committee said in a statement coaches had decided to withdraw Tsimanouskaya from the Games on doctors' advice about her "emotional, psychological state".

Belarus athletics head coach Yuri Moisevich told state television he "could see there was something wrong with her ... She either secluded herself or didn't want to talk."

The IOC would continue conversations with Tsimanouskaya on Monday and the Olympics governing body had asked for a full report from the Belarus' Olympic committee, Adams said.

In response to a number of questions by journalists about what the IOC would do to ensure other athletes in the village were protected, the IOC spokesperson said they were still collecting details about what exactly occurred.

Tsimanouskaya's refusal to board the plane, first reported by Reuters, highlighted discord in Belarus, a former Soviet state that is run with a tight grip by President Alexander Lukashenko.

On Monday, the IOC spokesperson said it had taken a number of actions against Belarus' Olympic Committee in the run-up to the Games following nationwide protests in the country.

In March, the IOC refused to recognise the election of Lukashenko's son Viktor as head of the country's Olympic Committee. Both father and son were banned from attending the Games in December.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS, AFP)

Originally published on France24