As a child, Karyna Kazlouskaya never imagined that she would compete in the Olympics. Archery was just a hobby for her, one of many sports she practiced with her friends in her spare time. But the more she trained, the better she got and eventually turned her hobby into a career. The culmination of their years of hard work so far: a fourth place in the team competition at the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021.
But what was supposed to be a dream come true turned into a nightmare for the athlete. Throughout the competition, fears plagued them over Kazlouskaya’s daring to oppose her country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko. “It was a lot of stress,” Kazlouskaya told DW. “I really wanted to show what I could do, because you only get such a big competition once in a lifetime.”
Archer Karyna Kazlouskaya calls for help from the IOC
But she wasn’t able to enjoy it, the archer said. “I was under the control of the Belarusian National Olympic Committee. There were a lot of things I wasn’t allowed to do. They even put someone on our side, probably from the KGB [Belarussischer Geheimdienst, Anm. d. Redaktion]who watched us filming.”
Kazlouskaya: “The IOC did nothing”
At a time when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is pushing for the reintegration of Russian and Belarusian athletes despite the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, government critics like Kazlouskaya are being put on the same footing.
She is one of more than a hundred Belarusian athletes who have come into conflict with Lukashenko’s regime. Openly critical athletes have been jailed since his controversial re-election in August 2020, which sparked months of mass protests across the country. They lost their government-sponsored jobs and – as in the case of Kazlouskaya – were expelled from the national teams.
They are considered stateless for international competitions and are ostracized in their own country because of their political views. Even if other Belarusian athletes were allowed to compete in Paris, Kazlouskaya would not be among them as things stand.
IOC President Thomas Bach has not yet responded to inquiries from Belarusian athletes
When asked if she felt let down by the IOC, Kazlouskaya replied: “Yes, the feeling is there,” adding that two letters she sent to the organization about her sporting plight went unanswered. “They just let us, the people who suffer under the regime, down. They didn’t do anything,” said the athlete.
threats and intimidation
Kazlouskaya, 22, says she has faced threats and intimidation since signing an open letter calling for snap elections in 2020. Fearing for her safety, she decided to flee Belarus in April last year and pursue her archery career in neighboring Poland. “The chairman of the Belarusian federation put a lot of pressure on me,” said Kazlouskaya. “He said I should stop my political activity and be quiet.”
After the war began, everything got much worse, the archer reports in a DW interview. “We were checked on everything by the Ministry of Sport. And I realized that it would either be my last year as an athlete or that I would have to leave the country.”
The IOC’s Olympic Charter obliges the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to “act against all forms of discrimination and violence in sport.” Otherwise, a NOC can be suspended and its athletes banned from Olympic events.
The IOC is not responding
Earlier this month, the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation (BSSF), a movement led by opposition athletes, called on the IOC to defend Belarusian athletes who are being penalized by the authorities. They should be given the right to take part in sports competitions and protected from persecution by the Lukashenko regime for their political stance.
The IOC has not yet commented on the BSSF’s proposal. In addition, the IOC has not yet explained why the Belarusian National Olympic Committee, headed by Alexander Lukashenko’s son Viktor, has not yet been suspended due to obvious violations of the Olympic Charter.
Tsimanouskaya wants to go to Paris for Poland
The BSSF was formed to provide financial and legal support to opposition athletes. Among them are the athletes Kazlouskaya and Krystsina Tsimanouskaya. The latter made headlines at the Tokyo games when she refused to take a flight back to Belarus. The sprinter had publicly criticized her coach and this had caused tensions in her home country. Like Kazlouskaya, Tsimanouskaya now lives and trains in Poland. She joined an athletics club in Warsaw and competes in local competitions with other international athletes.
Although the 26-year-old has acquired Polish citizenship, Olympic rules require her to wait three years before she can compete for her adopted country of Poland. And if the Belarusian National Olympic Committee does not end this “deliberation period” early, she also has little chance of starting in Paris next year.
Tsimanouskaya has taken Polish citizenship and wants to compete in the 2024 Olympics
“The athletes and coaches currently representing the Belarusian team were chosen based on political, not sporting, considerations,” Tsimanouskaya told DW. “At the moment there are only pro-regime people on the team who have been approved by the KGB. It goes against the principles of Olympic sport and the rights of athletes like me. It seems we have no rights.”
Athletes want to be heard
Tsimanouskaya says she too received “zero” support from the IOC. She reports that no official has contacted her since the day she landed in Poland from Tokyo. And that she never heard from them again after she applied for a grant from the Olympic Solidarity Fund.
The IOC has also been silent on the case of the sprinter so far. For BSSF Director Alexander Opeikin, this is a classic example of the organization’s hypocrisy. “If the IOC speaks of ‘human rights’ in relation to official Belarusian and Russian athletes, why don’t they care about the rights of other Belarusian athletes who have been oppressed?” Opeikin criticized in an interview with DW.
Tsimanouskaya says she looks forward to one day running for Poland. She wants to do this as a token of her gratitude to the country that took her in. But the athlete also knows that some of her former teammates will not be able to compete until the situation in Belarus changes.
“It is clear that I will no longer represent Belarus,” says Tsimanouskaya. “But at least I want my country to be free and for the war to stop.” The sprinter adds: “I just want the IOC to hear our voices, the voices of those who are oppressed. That they hear our voices and exercise our rights in some way.”
Adapted from the English by Thomas Klein.