A Belarusian athlete refusing to return home is the latest problem the Olympics have conjured up for Japanese authorities.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media that sprinter Krystina Tsimanouskaya entered the Polish embassy in Tokyo on Monday evening, after seeking asylum at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Sunday night, when she was due to board a plane back to Belarus. Poland was the first European country to respond.

"She was offered a humanitarian visa and is free to pursue her sporting career in Poland if she so chooses," Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz wrote on Twitter.

Tsimanouskaya was supposed to compete in the women's 200-meter race on Monday but said she was removed from the Olympic Village by the Belarusian Olympic Committee after refusing to compete in the 4x400-meter relay.

"I am asking the International Olympic Committee for help. Pressure has been put on me and they are trying to take me out of the country without my consent, so I am asking the IOC to intervene," Tsimanouskaya said in a video posted Sunday.