The two Belarusian cross-country skiers Swetlana Andrijuk and Darja Dolidowisch have been de facto excluded from international competitions by the authorities in their country for reasons that have not yet been clarified.
Sergei Dolidowisch, father and coach of 17-year-old Darja, spoke to the French news agency about a political decision on Wednesday.
“Nobody can explain to Svetlana and Darya why they are victims of this situation,” he said, adding that the two athletes did not take part in the 2020 demonstrations in Minsk and signed the open letter calling for free elections, as was the case in almost 2000 other active people would have done.
“We are in contact with the International Ski Federation FIS and the National Olympic Committee to understand the situation,” said the communications department of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of the AFP.
Several activists had been targeted by the regime of ruler Alexander Lukashenko in the past two years for their actual or alleged support for the protest movement that rocked Belarus in 2020.
Dolidowisch: “I have never hidden my political position”
22-year-old Andrijuk “was supposed to fly to Russia for a training camp, but they literally got her off the plane and told her she wasn’t going anywhere,” accused Dolidovich. His daughter was excluded from the Belarusian Association’s junior training camp and therefore from all competitions.
According to her father, the 17-year-old is a victim of his own political commitment: “I have never hidden my political stance. I have expressed it in the media and in personal conversations. I have always said that the country needs change,” said he who has meanwhile lost his job as a coach.
At the Olympic Games in Tokyo last summer, Belarusian sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya revealed that she was afraid of being forcibly returned to her country because she had criticized her athletics federation. She was forced to cancel her participation and was placed under protection before receiving a humanitarian visa from Poland. The IOC announced in Tokyo that a disciplinary commission would investigate the case “and draw its conclusions”.
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