The International Olympic Committee said it had expelled the coaches who were involved in the attempt to force the runner home against her will.
Two coaches involved in the attempt to force an Olympic athlete home to Belarus against her will have been stripped of their credentials and expelled from the Olympic Village, Games organizers said Friday. The case of the 200-meter specialist Kristina Timanovskaya,24, briefly turned the Tokyo Games into the center of a major diplomatic conflict when Timanovskaya sought sanctuary from the police at Narita International Airport. Timanovskaya, who is now in Poland, said she had been “kidnapped” after writing an Instagram post criticizing the Belarusian athletic federation’s preparations for the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee had come under pressure over the slow progress of its investigation into the matter until, on Friday, the organization announced in a Twitter post that it had asked the coaches, Artur Shimak and Yuri Moisevich, to leave the Olympic Games.
