{"id":1582727,"date":"2022-08-01T12:40:03","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T16:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1582727"},"modified":"2022-08-01T12:40:27","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T16:40:27","slug":"a-year-after-olympic-defection-belarusian-sprinter-dreams-of-2024-paris-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-year-after-olympic-defection-belarusian-sprinter-dreams-of-2024-paris-games\/","title":{"rendered":"A year after Olympic defection, Belarusian sprinter dreams of 2024 Paris Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fa-year-after-olympic-defection-belarusian-sprinter-dreams-of-2024-paris-games%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1582727&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>(Reuters) \u2013     One year ago, sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya\u2019s life was upended when she refused to board a plane back to her native Belarus after being kicked out of the Tokyo Olympics by her team. <\/p>\n<p>What began as a controversy over Tsimanouskaya\u2019s entry in the 4\u00d7400 metres relay snowballed into a defection that became one of the biggest stories of the Games and highlighted the pressure Belarusian athletes face for challenging authority.<\/p>\n<p>Forced out by her national team after criticising coaches for entering her in an event that was not her customary distance, Tsimanouskaya feared for her safety if she returned to Belarus and sought refuge in Poland.<\/p>\n<p>She is in the process of receiving Polish citizenship and the necessary documents to compete at national team level there.<\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old also wants another chance to compete at the Olympics and hopes to run at the 2024 Paris Games in the 200m,  the event she had been set to run the day after Belarus removed her from the team. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m disappointed that I didn\u2019t compete in the distance I had prepared for,\u201d Tsimanouskaya told Reuters in a video interview from her home in Warsaw. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I\u2019m not losing hope. I\u2019m still training here. I dream of going back to the Olympics and this time run my distance and show decent results.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tsimanouskaya has only been able to run in lower-level meets as she awaits citizenship and says she misses elite competition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m grateful to Poland for having let me enter some competitions,\u201d she said. \u201cBut as an athlete who competed at the Olympics, it was tough to realise that I now was running at competitions with children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Belarusians and Russians are currently barred from competing at international athletics meets because of Moscow\u2019s actions in Ukraine. <\/p>\n<p>\u2018NOT AFRAID\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Tsimanouskaya became a symbol of resistance in Belarus, where opposition figures and those critical of the authorities have been prosecuted, jailed or fled since mass protests against leader Alexander Lukashenko in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The protests, followed by a violent crackdown on demonstrators, erupted after Lukashenko seized a sixth presidential term in an election that observers say was rigged. He denies electoral fraud.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t go to the Olympics to represent Lukashenko\u2019s authority,\u201d she said. \u201cI went to the Olympics to represent Belarus. And for me, Belarus does not equal Lukashenko or the authorities.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Tsimanouskaya is slowly building a new life for herself in Poland, where she plans to study and hopes to one day open a gym with her husband Arseni, a fitness trainer.<\/p>\n<p>She has also had her share of disappointments. <\/p>\n<p>In addition to being sidelined from international athletics as a Belarusian national, Tsimanouskaya said some who had pledged their support since her defection had not followed through.    <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t see myself as a hero, but maybe my actions will serve as an example for someone,\u201d she said.  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver time, my life has started to fall into place. I\u2019m continuing my career and making plans for the future. It shows that people shouldn\u2019t be afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Peter Rutherford)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/?attachment_id=2732728\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI700M0-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI700M0-VIEWIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/?attachment_id=2732729\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI700LZ-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI700LZ-VIEWIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) \u2013 One year ago, sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya\u2019s life was upended when she refused to board a plane back to her native Belarus after being kicked out of the Tokyo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1582727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1582727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1582727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1582727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1582727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}