They pleaded with her. They cajoled her. They even gave her a history lesson. And when all that failed, they tried to force her home to face the wrath of a dictator.
A reported recording has emerged on the news outlet Meduza of an angry meeting at the Tokyo Olympic Village on Monday in which Belarus team chiefs tried to persuade sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya to return home after she criticized her coaches on Instagram.
Just a few hours afterward, the sprinter fled into the arms of police at Tokyo’s Narita airport as Belarus officials tried to force her onto a flight to Minsk. On Wednesday, after two days holed up at the Polish embassy in Tokyo, she was back at Narita to take a flight to a life of exile in Europe.
The former Soviet republic of Belarus is considered Europe’s last dictatorship under its autocratic president of 27 years, Alexander Lukashenko, who clings to power…
