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- A Belarusian sprinter who defected during the Olympics now has minders check her food for poison.
- Krystsina Tsimanouskaya refused to board a plane home following her criticism of her coaches.
- She is now in Poland, but fears attacks on her life from Belarusian intelligence services.
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Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya now has minders check her food is not poisoned after her defection during the Olympics.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Tsimanouskaya revealed that she takes no chances following the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in 2018 and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020.
During the "Lunch with the FT" interview, in which famous figures are interviewed over lunch, Tsimanouskaya refused to eat, citing fear of poisoning.
"Unless it is tested by the security services, she is not permitted even bottled water," reporter Magdalena Miecznicka wrote in the story.
"I ask if she would like to look at a menu. "No," she says. Maybe drinks at least? "No," she repeats gravely. "We can't.""
Miecznicka continued, writing: "After the poisoning of the Skripals and, more recently, the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, there are no chances to be taken. Thanks to the KGB - Belarus's intelligence services kept the name after the fall of the USSR - this is not going to be a normal Lunch with the FT."
-Tadeusz Giczan (@TadeuszGiczan) August 1, 2021
Tsimanouskaya criticized her coaches after seeing she had been signed up to run the 4 x 400 meter relay, an event she had never done before, during the Tokyo Games.
She was also stopped from competing in her favored event, the 200 meters.
"When I went back to the Olympic Village, I saw that I was scheduled to run the 4 x 400 relay,"
"But I had never run that distance, never once in my entire life. It was shocking that they should have made that decision without asking me," she told the FT.