"At the Olympic Games in Tokyo, I was in the Belarusian national team," says sprinter Kristina Timanovskaja.
"Now, at the Games in Paris, I represent Poland".
At the Tokyo Games, which were held in 2021 due to the corona virus pandemic, the 27-year-old athlete attracted attention because she requested asylum, fearing that she would be arrested due to a post on social networks when she returned to her homeland.
On July 30, 2021, Timanovskaya posted a video on Instagram in which she criticizes Belarusian officials, because they included her in the 400-meter relay at the last minute and without her consent.
The athlete later said that after this announcement, she was forcibly taken to the airport in Tokyo, from where she was supposed to be returned to Belarus against her will.
She said that at the terminal she asked the police to prevent them from forcing her on the plane.
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After the incident, Belarus officials said that Tymanovskaya was kicked out of the national team due to her "emotional and psychological condition", which she denied.
In February of this year, the head coach of the Belarusian athletics Olympic team, Yuriy Moysevich, was suspended for five years for his part in Timanovskaya's departure from the Games.
The athlete says that the decision to apply for asylum was difficult, because it meant that she would leave her family and friends and that she might have to stop her sports career - but she believes that she had no choice.
"On the phone, my grandmother told me to do anything but go back to Belarus," she told the BBC.
"That could have been not only the end of my career, but also of my normal life because I didn't know what was waiting for me".
Seeking asylum
Tymanovskaya says that before the Olympics, she took part in protests over the disputed presidential election in Belarus in 2020.
After President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia, declared a convincing victory, protests began in Belarus during which hundreds were arrested, among them friends of the athlete.
Timanovskaja says that even before the Games, the Belarusian authorities knew that she participated in protests.
"So, I knew if I came back home, I would have serious problems," she says.
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After contacting police at the Tokyo airport, Timanovskaya sought help from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and decided to seek asylum in Poland.
She is one of many athletes who do not return home after major sporting events because they are concerned about personal safety and respect for human rights - or in other cases, because they want a better life.
Why do they decide to defect?
During the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, Cimanuskaja was not the only one on the front pages.
Julius Sekitoleko, a Ugandan weightlifter, went missing during a pre-Olympic training camp in Japan.
He later explained that he "hoped to find a job to support his family".
"I had nothing in Uganda.
"My wife was pregnant and I had no way to earn money," Sekitoleko told the BBC.
"I couldn't support my family."
The athlete says Ugandan officials subsequently banned him from the Olympics and Commonwealth Games for "embarrassing the country".
"Then my brain didn't work at all," adds Sekitoleko.
The 24-year-old says that, like many athletes in poorer countries, he struggled to make ends meet while trying to build a career in sports.
But while in Tokyo, the International Weightlifting Federation informed him that he had not made the Olympic team, and the Uganda Olympic Committee (OKU) arranged for his return to Uganda.
In an initial statement, OKU said Sekitoleko arrived in Japan before his qualification for the Games was confirmed.
However, Julius accuses OKU of taking him to Tokyo before they were sure he qualified.
Sekitoleko says that he sold the motorbike, which he used to drive people and thus earn money for a trip to Tokyo in the hope of winning a medal at the Games.
He was eventually told to leave Tokyo before the competition began.
After he disappeared, he says he spent three days looking for work in Japan and surviving on the little food he packed in his bag.
"When I left the room, I put a few cakes and bananas in my bag so that I would have something to eat."
After his disappearance, the police started looking for him and he was eventually deported to Uganda.
He was detained, but later released.
Athletes who defected
The first athlete to defect during the Olympic Games was the coach of the Czechoslovak gymnastics team, Marija Provaznjikova, who requested asylum in England during the 1948 Games in London, because she did not want to return to her native Prague after the communist coup.
At the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Iraqi weightlifter Ahmed defected to the United States because he feared he would be executed in his homeland for opposing Saddam Hussein, even though he carried the country's flag at the opening ceremony.
During the 2021 FIFA World Cup qualifier between Myanmar and Japan in Tokyo, Myanmar goalkeeper Pi Lian Aung held up three fingers to protest the country's military coup.
The live-streamed gesture drew a lot of attention as it defied the powerful military.
After the match, Aung applied for asylum in Japan, fearing for his life if he returned to his homeland.
He was granted asylum in August of that year.
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During a friendly soccer tournament in France in 2011, the entire Senegalese soccer team disappeared from the hotel.
During the Olympic Games in London in 2012, 21 athletes and coaches disappeared.
At the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, 13 athletes from Africa went missing.
Zakon o izbegfoliage
According to the United Nations (UN), a refugee is someone who flees conflict or danger and crosses borders in search of safety, and cannot return home without risking personal safety.
The term migrant refers to someone who decides to move to another country for a fresh start or in search of better economic opportunities.
"People in sport are not exempt from human rights violations and situations where they need protection," Jana Favero of the Australian Asylum Seeker Center told the BBC.
In Australia, which will host the Olympic Games in 2032, a large number of athletes have applied for asylum so far, especially after the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Favero stresses that everyone has a legal right to seek protection from persecution, regardless of how they arrived in Australia - a country whose asylum centers have proved controversial.
In the past few years, the organization in which Favero works has helped a certain number of athletes who have requested protection in Australia.
"Vicious circle"
Due to the economic crisis in Sri Lanka, a number of athletes have gone missing during recent international sporting events, including the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Pratiba Mahanamaheva, Sri Lanka's former human rights commissioner, tells the BBC that although asylum cannot be sought because of economic problems, many athletes hope to provide a better life for their families - and are therefore willing to give up their sporting careers.
This lawyer believes that an athlete who disappears can be replaced by another, but that those replacements can also decide to disappear.
He believes that this "vicious circle" will not be broken until the athletes receive the necessary help for their families while they are training.
'No choice'
The difficulties faced by many athletes are often covered up by the lavish opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games.
Julius Sekitoleko still hopes to fly to France to compete in this year's Olympics, even though he is struggling to make ends meet.
He does not want to think about the past and still hopes that one day he will prove himself as a sportsman.
Meanwhile, Kristina Timanovskaja is preparing to compete under the Polish flag this year.
If she hadn't received the support offered by Polish citizenship, she says she would have had to end her career.
"The Olympics unite people from all over the world," she says.
"There are many athletes, like me, who simply have no choice.
"Sometimes we have to run away from our homeland just to save ourselves".
Additional reporting: Jesse Kenner and Mie Mie Kaing
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