{"id":536480,"date":"2026-03-12T22:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T22:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/536480\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T22:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T22:51:11","slug":"iranian-womens-team-not-the-first-athletes-to-seek-asylum-while-competing-overseas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/536480\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian women’s team not the first athletes to seek asylum while competing overseas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The plight of the Iranian women’s soccer team members who sought asylum in Australia after being labelled traitors while playing at the Asian Cup has gripped the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iran war live updates:<\/a> For the latest news on the Middle East crisis, read our blog.<\/p>\n

Originally, seven women chose to stay in Australia due to fears for their safety after refusing to sing the national anthem in the first game of the soccer tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How a daring escape by Iranian soccer players secured their asylum in Australia <\/a><\/p>\n

The Australian government has granted Temporary Humanitarian Visas to five athletes from the Iranian women’s football team.<\/p>\n

One changed her mind and will return to Iran, which is at war with Israel and the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is not the first time athletes have arrived in a country to compete at a sporting event and then sought to stay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Events such as the Olympics or World Cup have long provided an opportunity for athletes to seek protection from other nations due to a lack of freedom or conflict at home.<\/p>\n

But not all these bids ended in resettlement, and in some cases, athletes changed their minds.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the most high-profile cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya<\/p>\n

Belarussian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya chose to defect from her country after her grandmother told her not to return from the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Belarusian Olympic athlete defected on grandmother’s advice<\/a><\/p>\n

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who Belarusian team officials attempted to force home from the Tokyo Olympics, says her family feared she would be sent to a psychiatric ward.<\/p>\n

Tsimanouskaya arrived at the Olympics expecting to compete in the 100 metres and 200 metres running events but her coaches pulled her from the 200 and entered her in a relay instead at the last minute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tsimanouskaya said she was removed from the team “due to the fact that I spoke on my Instagram about the negligence of my coaches”.<\/p>\n

The Belarus National Olympic Committee said coaches withdrew Tsimanouskaya from the Games on doctors’ advice about her psychological state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Belarusian Sprinter\u00a0Krystsina\u00a0Tsimanouskaya\u00a0who took refuge in the Polish embassy in Tokyo, looks on while boarding a flight to Vienna at Narita International Airport in Narita, east of Tokyo, Japan August 4, 2021. (Reuters:\u00a0Kim Kyung-Hoon)<\/p>\n

Tsimanouskaya said she was ordered to pack her bags and head to the airport before she had the chance to compete.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But upon arriving at Haneda airport, she approached police to avoid boarding the flight.<\/p>\n

She then took refuge at the Polish embassy in Poland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an exclusive interview with Reuters in Warsaw, Poland, she said her family feared she would be sent to a psychiatric ward if she went back to Belarus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I have always been far from politics, I didn’t sign any letters or go to any protests, I didn’t say anything against the Belarusian government,” she said.<\/p>\n

The athlete later settled in Poland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Applying for asylum at Australian Commonwealth Games<\/p>\n

At the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, eight athletes from Cameroon went missing from the village followed by more from Sierra Leone, Uganda and Rwanda.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By the end of the games, more than 200 athletes from mostly African nations applied for humanitarian visas to stay in the country beyond their existing visa deadline.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once their visas ran out, immigration minister at the time, Peter Dutton, said they had overstayed their visas and should not try to “game the system” and threatened deportation.<\/p>\n

The next year, the government denied the bulk of the applications, while some remained unaccounted for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martina Navratilova\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1975, Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova defected from Communist Czechosolvakia as an 18-year-old on the last Saturday of the US Open.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking during a press conference, she said she decided to defect due to strict government control over her life and career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She became a temporary citizen after requesting political asylum and later a citizen in 1981.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marie Provazn\u00edkov\u00e1\"Marie<\/p>\n

Marie Provaznikova in 1948.\u00a0 (AP: Rider-Rider)<\/p>\n

Marie Provazn\u00edkov\u00e1 was one of the first known political defectors from the Olympic Games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just five months before the 1948 London Games, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, backed by the Soviet Union, seized total control of the country in a coup d’\u00e9tat.<\/p>\n

A totalitarian system was established that would last for 40 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Provazn\u00edkov\u00e1, who was the Czechoslovakian women’s gymnastics coach, refused to return home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said she sought asylum in England because of “the lack of freedom” in Prague.<\/p>\n

In 1992, Czechoslovakia was dissolved and became the independent states of Czech Republic and Slovakia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sergei Nemtsanov<\/p>\n

At the Montreal Olympics in 1976, 17-year-old Soviet diver Sergei Nemtsanov announced he was staying in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Soviet officials told the media<\/a> he was “abducted and brainwashed by provocateurs”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Only a few weeks later, the young diver had second thoughts and returned to the USSR.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nadia Com\u0103neci\"Nadia<\/p>\n

Nadia Comaneci dismounts from the uneven parallel bars to score a perfect 10.00 in 1976. (AP: File)<\/p>\n

Romanian Nadia Com\u0103neci is one of the world’s most famous gymnasts.<\/p>\n

She became the first to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the Olympic Games in 1976.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While she did not defect at an international event, Com\u0103neci decided to flee her country due to the regimes’ tight control of her career and movements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu, the communist president who led the country from 1965-1989, treated Com\u0103neci as a tool for propaganda in which she was portrayed as a communist hero.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was subjected to state surveillance and refused travel beyond other communist countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1989, Com\u0103neci fled across the Hungarian border on foot and eventually settled in the US.<\/p>\n

Raed Ahmed\"Raed<\/p>\n

Raed Ahmed speaks at a news conference at an Atlanta hotel later. (AP: Susan Ragan)<\/p>\n

Iraqi weightlifter Raed Ahmed marched with his country’s flag at the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Games in 1996, only to shun it later and defect to the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ahmed opposed Saddam Hussein’s rule and feared execution in his homeland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While walking in the parade of nations, Ahmed was ordered by the Iraqi Olympic Committee not to make eye contact with then US president Bill Clinton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Noticing the president clapping for the Iraqi delegation, he made his decision to apply for asylum in the US instead of returning home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ahmed fled the Olympic Village, which was located in Georgia Tech University, with the help of a student.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He now lives in Michigan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hungarian defections at the 1956 Olympics<\/p>\n

The 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne took place at the height of the Cold War.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A month prior to the games, the Soviet Union had invaded Hungary and stifled an uprising against the Communist government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tension between the Soviet Union and Hungary culminated in a water polo semifinal that was referred to as the Blood in the Water match.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The game turned tense and violent when Hungarian player Ervin Zador had blood pouring from his eye after being punched by Soviet player Valentin Prokopov.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Angry pro-Hungarian spectators rushed to the poolside where they had to be restrained by police.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the end of the Games, more than 40 Hungarian athletes refused to return home, eventually settling in various other countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

20 athletes go missing in London 2012<\/p>\n

At the 2012 London Olympic Games, 20 athletes and coaches from several nations went missing and sought asylum in the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seven athletes were from Cameroon, three from Sudan and one from Ethiopia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many sought to escape economic hardship, poor living conditions and political persecution.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The plight of the Iranian women’s soccer team members who sought asylum in Australia after being labelled traitors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[21425,64,63,266090,5575,10018,13198,588,85,21418],"class_list":["post-536480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-asia-cup","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-defections","tag-iran","tag-olympics","tag-soccer","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}