Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who left the Olympic Games in Tokyo and seeks asylum in Poland, attends an interview with Reuters in Warsaw, Poland August 5, 2021. REUTERS/Darek Golik
WARSAW (Reuters) - Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya decided to defect as she was being driven to a Tokyo airport because her grandmother told her that it was not safe to return home to Belarus.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters in Warsaw on Thursday, she said her family feared she would be sent to a psychiatric ward if she went back to Belarus, and that her grandmother had called her to tell her not to return.
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