Olympic Sprinter From Belarus Seeks Refuge in Japan, Fearing Jail at Home

Belarus tried to force the sprinter, Kristina Timanovskaya, to return home after she criticized her coaches for registering her for the wrong event.

A Belarusian sprinter said Sunday that she was under the protection of the Japanese police after her country’s Olympic Committee tried, but failed, to forcibly send her home after she criticized her coaches for registering her for the wrong event. The sprinter, Kristina Timanovskaya, announced Sunday evening on Instagram that she had sought protection in Japan because she feared for her safety in Belarus, where the country’s strongman leader, Aleksander G. Lukashenko, in power for 27 years, has sought to stifle any dissent. “I am afraid that in Belarus they might put me in jail,” Ms. Timanovskaya told the independent Belarusian news portal Zerkalo.io. “I am not afraid that I will be fired or kicked out of the national team, I am worried about my safety. And I think that at the moment it is not safe for me in Belarus.”