An Anthology of Sporting Protest

What the Open Letter From Belarusian Athletes Meant for Society

Five years is enough time to look back at the events of 2020 with clar­i­ty and from a rea­son­ably safe dis­tance. With­out exag­ger­a­tion, what hap­pened in Belarus dur­ing those months was his­toric in its scale and impact. This is not the place for ana­lyz­ing root caus­es or debat­ing who was right or wrong. Instead, we are inter­est­ed in the nature of what took place and how it influ­enced the course of Belaru­sian his­to­ry.

The Sporting Protest No One Expected

One of the most remark­able chap­ters in Belarus’s civ­il resis­tance was the protest that came from its sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

We are not here to judge this action in terms of polit­i­cal strat­e­gy or his­tor­i­cal cor­rect­ness. What mat­ters is the fact itself: an unprece­dent­ed phe­nom­e­non in glob­al sport. A moment when a group tra­di­tion­al­ly seen as apo­lit­i­cal and loy­al stood open­ly against state pow­er.

In most coun­tries, sport is depen­dent on the state: through fund­ing, infra­struc­ture, per­son­al con­tracts, and career prospects. That is why ath­letes are usu­al­ly seen not as par­tic­i­pants in protests but as silent bystanders. Yet in Belarus in 2020, some­thing dif­fer­ent hap­pened. The very peo­ple trained to com­pete and win – ath­letes – chose to take a stand.

The open let­ter from Belaru­sian ath­letes became a pow­er­ful act of civic protest that res­onat­ed far beyond the country’s bor­ders. In it, the ath­letes called on author­i­ties to stop the vio­lence, inves­ti­gate crimes com­mit­ted by law enforce­ment, and hold new elec­tions. But the let­ter was more than a ges­ture of sol­i­dar­i­ty: it was a dec­la­ra­tion of dig­ni­ty, writ­ten in the lan­guage of civic respon­si­bil­i­ty.

In this moment, out­rage over what they saw as bla­tant injus­tice out­weighed the sport­ing world’s tra­di­tion of neu­tral­i­ty. Over the course of sev­er­al months, more than 2,000 mem­bers of the ath­let­ic com­mu­ni­ty signed the let­ter.

What gave the let­ter such weight were the names beneath it: Olympic cham­pi­ons, world-renowned ath­letes, respect­ed coach­es – peo­ple who had spent decades shap­ing Belarus’s glob­al image through sport. Their sig­na­tures were not only per­son­al state­ments but direct blows to a regime that had long relied on ath­let­ic suc­cess to pro­mote its own legit­i­ma­cy.

In a coun­try like Belarus, where the intel­lec­tu­al and polit­i­cal elite have been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly sup­pressed, ath­letes often remain the only vis­i­ble pub­lic fig­ures with the pow­er to influ­ence soci­ety.

Those who signed faced pres­sure, dis­missals, and crim­i­nal charges. Some were forced to leave the coun­try. Oth­ers stayed but lived under con­stant sur­veil­lance. For the regime, it was a dan­ger­ous sign: those meant to serve as a nation­al show­case had become a mir­ror. In place of silent obe­di­ence came loud, unam­bigu­ous dis­sent.

The regime’s attempt to stage a “mir­ror response” – by gath­er­ing sig­na­tures in sup­port of gov­ern­ment actions – quick­ly col­lapsed into farce.

A Historically Unique Moment

The ath­letes’ protest was not only unprece­dent­ed: it was one of the most pow­er­ful and orga­nized move­ments of its kind. The voic­es of glob­al stars like Andrey Krauchanka, Ali­ak­san­dra Herasi­me­nia, and Yele­na Leuchanka rang out espe­cial­ly loud­ly. They were joined by hun­dreds of oth­er high-pro­file ath­letes, soc­cer play­ers, coach­es, and sports offi­cials.

Noth­ing like it had ever hap­pened before: a mas­sive, open, and coor­di­nat­ed action by a country’s sport­ing elite against its own gov­ern­ment. It broke all prece­dents.

The inter­na­tion­al response was swift. The Inter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) stepped in. The repres­sion against ath­letes did not go unno­ticed: for the first time in its his­to­ry, the IOC imposed sanc­tions on a Nation­al Olympic Com­mit­tee as a form of pres­sure.

The sheer absur­di­ty and scale of the repres­sion left no room for the tra­di­tion­al “sport is above pol­i­tics” stance. This protest was not just political—it was about fair play, about the right to com­pete, to be safe, and, ulti­mate­ly, to live.

The protest sent a mes­sage to the world: silence is no longer neu­tral when vio­lence is involved. Ath­letes earned the moral right to take a civic stance. The IOC’s reac­tion set a new prece­dent: sports orga­ni­za­tions must pro­tect not just the rules and the games, but also the peo­ple who make sport pos­si­ble.

The Foundation as a Civic Institution

One of the most sig­nif­i­cant out­comes of the ath­letes’ move­ment was the cre­ation of the Belaru­sian Sport Sol­i­dar­i­ty Foun­da­tion. Estab­lished in August 2020, the foun­da­tion quick­ly became not only a vehi­cle for sup­port but a sym­bol of uni­ty.

The foun­da­tion pro­vid­ed legal assis­tance, sup­port for emi­gra­tion, help with employ­ment, legal­iza­tion, and both mate­r­i­al and moral aid. Over time, it became part of the inter­na­tion­al human rights infra­struc­ture in sport—submitting for­mal appeals to the IOC, build­ing part­ner­ships abroad, and offer­ing tan­gi­ble solu­tions.

Roots of Discontent

The ath­letes’ protest did not emerge overnight. It had been build­ing for years. The events of August 2020 were the spark, but dis­sat­is­fac­tion had been sim­mer­ing long before, espe­cial­ly with how sport was man­aged in Belarus.

Lead­er­ship roles in the sports sys­tem were often hand­ed not to qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als but to secu­ri­ty ser­vice vet­er­ans, gov­ern­ment insid­ers, loy­al­ists with no real author­i­ty in the ath­let­ic world, or rel­a­tives of the polit­i­cal elite. This cre­at­ed resent­ment, demo­ti­va­tion, and a strong sense of injus­tice.

A clear exam­ple is Sports Min­is­ter Siarhei Kavalchuk, who for many became a sym­bol of incom­pe­tence, pres­sure, and repres­sion. His refusal to engage in dia­logue and his heavy-hand­ed man­age­ment only accel­er­at­ed the con­sol­i­da­tion of the protest.

His attempts to man­u­al­ly reform soc­cer sparked inter­nal sar­casm and frus­tra­tion. The dom­i­nance of secu­ri­ty offi­cials and nepo­tism in sport pushed many ath­letes toward protest under overt­ly polit­i­cal slo­gans.

Anoth­er fac­tor was the exces­sive “sta­ti­za­tion” of sport. Ath­letes and sports offi­cials were treat­ed like gov­ern­ment employ­ees with no right to per­son­al opin­ions or pub­lic posi­tions. In any cri­sis, the rule was silence. Over time, this cre­at­ed a pres­sure cook­er effect.

A stark exam­ple of where this leads was the case of Krystsi­na Tsi­manouskaya, when heavy-hand­ed treat­ment of the ath­lete thrust Belarus into the glob­al spot­light dur­ing the Tokyo Olympics. Once again, the world had to take a clos­er look at what was hap­pen­ing in Belaru­sian sport.

Long-Term Impact

Still, the pres­sure orga­nized by the sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty did lead to real results. Many repressed ath­letes were rein­stat­ed and able to com­pete at the Tokyo Olympics. Belaru­sian sport became less politi­cized and was pulled back from its role in gov­ern­ment pro­pa­gan­da. Alexan­der Lukashenko was forced to step down as head of the Nation­al Olympic Committee—a posi­tion he had held for more than 15 years. This was a rare instance of retreat for a man known for nev­er back­ing down.

The can­celed Ice Hock­ey World Cham­pi­onship and Belarus’s exclu­sion from host­ing oth­er inter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments were the first vis­i­ble signs that the glob­al sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty would no longer turn a blind eye to mass human rights vio­la­tions.

But the true point of no return came on Feb­ru­ary 24, 2022, when Belarus joined Rus­sia in break­ing the Olympic truce. The coun­try was offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized as a co-aggres­sor in the war against Ukraine and was hit with seri­ous IOC sanc­tions.

These sanc­tions have now been in place for more than three years, plung­ing Belaru­sian sport into a deep cri­sis:

• Inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion has been halt­ed; 
• Qual­i­fi­ca­tion for major events, includ­ing the Olympics, has become near­ly impos­si­ble; 
• Team sports have vir­tu­al­ly dis­ap­peared from the glob­al stage. 

In this con­text, the role of the Belaru­sian Sport Sol­i­dar­i­ty Foun­da­tion became even more crit­i­cal. It con­tin­ued sup­port­ing repressed ath­letes while also becom­ing a key play­er in the glob­al con­ver­sa­tion about sport’s future.

The foun­da­tion draft­ed and sub­mit­ted a pro­pos­al to the IOC out­lin­ing a neu­tral ath­lete admis­sion frame­work – a pos­si­ble com­pro­mise between col­lec­tive sanc­tions and indi­vid­ual rights. This pro­pos­al formed the basis of the IOC’s cur­rent pol­i­cy on “indi­vid­ual neu­tral ath­letes” (AIN) and helped shape a new inter­na­tion­al approach to sport­ing sanc­tions.

While imper­fect, this com­pro­mise forced the regime to stop using ath­let­ic achieve­ments as pro­pa­gan­da tools.

In recog­ni­tion of its efforts, the foun­da­tion was named the Best Human Rights Ini­tia­tive in Sport in June 2022 and received the top award at the pres­ti­gious Play the Game con­fer­ence in Den­mark.

Conclusion

The protest of Belaru­sian ath­letes was not an iso­lat­ed event: it was a glob­al prece­dent. It changed the struc­ture of Belaru­sian sport and raised the bar for civic engage­ment by ath­letes around the world.

For the first time in decades, sport stopped being just a back­drop for flags and anthems. It found its voice – and that voice was heard in IOC board­rooms, in the offices of polit­i­cal lead­ers, in news­rooms, and in the hearts of mil­lions.

The open let­ter, pub­lished in a not-so-big East­ern Euro­pean coun­try, became a sym­bol of a pow­er­ful glob­al idea: silence is no longer accept­able; ath­letes have the right to con­science; and some­times, it is sport – fair, hon­est, com­pet­i­tive space – that first dares to say “no.”

Like any social move­ment, the protest had its cli­max and its fad­ing stage. It can­not last for­ev­er. But what was said and done can­not be erased.

This protest will remain in his­to­ry as a rare moment when ath­letes became the con­science of their coun­try and a dri­ving force for social trans­for­ma­tion.

And over time, one thing has become crys­tal clear: there can be no nor­mal­iza­tion of sport in Belarus with­out deep, sys­temic change. In a coun­try where basic civ­il rights are ignored and mar­ket mech­a­nisms do not func­tion, a state-run sports sys­tem is doomed to become a hol­low facade.