The Olympics have always been an attractive opportunity for athletes to defect from home

The Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya left Tokyo this week after her Olympics were over, bound not for her home country, but a new home in Poland.

Tsimanouskaya was granted a humanitarian visa by the Polish government after claiming the Belarusian Olympic Committee was trying to force her back to Minsk where she was in danger for her life. According to Tsimanouskaya, “her team had ‘made it clear’ she would face punishment if she returned home”. She wanted protection and asylum.

Tsimanouskaya was not the only athlete to attempt to flee in Japan. On July 16, the Ugandan weightlifter Julius Ssekitoleko left his training camp, with a note saying he hoped to find work in Japan. He is now back in Uganda, where he has been charged with conspiracy to defraud for allegedly travelling to Japan without having qualified for the games.

After 4 nights in detention, Uganda’s national team weightlifter, Julius Ssekitoleko has finally secured temporary freedom after being released on police bond today at the CID headquarters in Kibuli. #NBSLiveAt9 pic.twitter.com/twfJTYyJAI

— NBS Television (@nbstv) July 28, 2021

Brief history

As the historian Barbara Keys notes, international sporting competitions “provide a very attractive opportunity for people to escape difficult situations at home, most often political repression”.

While athletes claiming asylum often have overlapping political and economic motives, the most high-profile defections of athletes…

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