MOSCOW—Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya who defected during the Tokyo Olympics this month says she plans to apply for Polish sporting citizenship so that she can run for Poland. Tsimanouskaya, 24, was taken in by Warsaw when her coaches told her to return to Belarus from Japan following a dispute, an order she refused to obey…

WARSAW, Poland—After all the turmoil of the last week, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya finally feels safe. The Belarusian Olympic sprinter who found refuge in Poland to avoid punishment at home after criticizing team officials at the Tokyo Games says she now hopes to focus on how to keep up a world-class running career. Speaking in an interview…

WARSAW—Sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who was removed from the Tokyo Olympics by the Belarusian team after she criticized her coaches, is auctioning a medal from the 2019 European Games to support athletes who say they have been targeted by authorities. Belarusian team officials took the 24-year-old to Tokyo’s Haneda airport against her wishes on Aug. 1,…

TOKYO—Two Belarus coaches who cut short sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya’s Tokyo Games have had their accreditation revoked and were removed from the athlete’s village, the IOC said on Friday. Athletics head coach Yuri Moisevich and team official Artur Shumak were asked to leave the Olympic village, the International Olympic Committee said, days after they ordered Tsimanouskaya…

A Belarusian sprinter, who refused to board a flight back to her home country out of fear she would be arrested after publicly criticizing her coaches at the Tokyo Olympics, revealed her grandmother also warned her it was not safe to return. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya of eastern Belarus has since fled to the capital of Poland…

MOSCOW—A Belarusian sprinter arrived in Austria on Wednesday after resisting an attempt by her Olympic team’s officials to send her home to Belarus, where the athlete said she could be in danger from authorities who have relentlessly cracked down on dissent. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya arrived in Vienna on a direct flight from Tokyo’s Narita International Airport…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday met with Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in Downing Street, promising support to the exiled leader. Tsikhanouskaya fled Belarus for Lithuania last year after losing a presidential election which Western governments say was rigged. “We are very much on your side, very much in support of what you are…

TOKYO—The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Tuesday it was waiting for a report later in the day from the Belarusian National Olympic Committee on the case of sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, after launching an investigation into the incident that has rocked the Games. The athlete took refuge in the Polish embassy in Tokyo on Monday,…

TOKYO—A Belarusian athlete at the center of an Olympic standoff with her own country walked into Poland’s embassy in Japan on Monday, a day after refusing to board a flight home she said she was being forced to take against her wishes by her team. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, 24, would seek asylum in Poland, said a…

TOKYO—Poland granted a visa Monday to a Belarusian Olympic sprinter who said she feared for her safety and that her team’s officials tried to force her to fly home, where the autocratic government was accused of diverting a flight to arrest a dissident journalist. An activist group that is helping athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya told The…