Belarusian Olympic participant Kristina Timanovskaya is on her way to Europe. Timanovskaya was escorted to Narita Airport, east of the Japanese capital, Tokyo. There she was supposed to take a flight to Warsaw, where the government had offered her a humanitarian visa. Instead, she took an Austrian Airlines flight that was supposed to land in Vienna. A member of the Belarusian community said the diplomats changed their flight due to security concerns. The athlete herself did not comment. Timanovskaya said on Sunday that after a complaint about her coaches she had been taken to Tokyo Airport to be sent back to her home country against her will. She then asked the Japanese police for help. President Alexander Lukashenko has been ruling Belarus since 1994, and he has cracked down on critics with a hard hand.
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