Krystsina Tsimanouskaya (Крысціна Ціманоўская), who was granted a humanitarian visa by Poland after Belarussian officials withdrew her from Tokyo 2020 and attempted to fly her back to Belarus, is selling a Silver Medal in support of her country’s athletes. Funds raised from the sale of the Silver Medal, which Tsimanouskaya won in the 100m relay at the Minsk 2019 European Games, will be transferred to the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation (BSSF), which provides support to athletes affected by Alexander Lukashanko’s (Александр Лукашенко’s) ruling regime.

“Those competitions were extremely important to me as they were held at my home arena”, said Tsimanouskaya in a statement issued via Facebook (below). “Lot of people, including my friends and family, came to cheer for me. I remember, when I was running in the relay and about 80 metres were left, I felt I was running out of power. At that moment, I heard the stadium explode due to people loudly cheering for me.

“The people’s support helped me get a second wind and run with all my might to the finish line. I even remember crying after I had finished, because I had felt such emotions during a race for the first time. That moment, I felt myself as toether with the spectators as one. They rightly say that sport is the thing that unites us.”

Tsimanouskaya is not the first Belarusian athlete to sell a medal to raise funds for athletes impacted by Lukashenko’s regime. The Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus (СкРБ) opened a criminal case against the two founders of the BSSF in April. This was after BSSF co-founder Aliaksandra Herasimenia (Александры Герасимени) sold her Istanbul 2012 50m freestyle Gold Medal in a similar fashion.

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In a statement, the СкРБ alleged that Herasimenia and Aleksandr Opeykin (Александра Опейкина), the Chair and Executive Director of the BSSF, ‘disseminated deliberately false information’ and ‘appealed to foreign states and international organisations to take actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of the Republic of Belarus’. The СкРБ alleges that through the actions of the BSSF, the duo caused ‘a number of major sporting events’ scheduled to be hosted by Belarus to be postponed, causing ‘significant image and financial damage’. It alleges that this damaged Belarus’s ‘prestige in the international and political arena’, as well as discrediting the country’s sport’s leadership. It adds that the maximum punishment is five years imprisonment.