Aliaksandra Herasimenia

Aliaksandra Herasimenia is a Belarusian former swimmer who specialised in sprint freestyle. She won silver medals in the 50 and 100 metre freestyle at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and a bronze medal in the 50 metre freestyle at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, and she became world champion in the 100 metre freestyle in 2011 and in the short course 50 metre freestyle in 2012. After her medal-winning career she became a critic of the Lukashenko regime in Belarus. She supported the sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who was threatened with enforced return to Belarus from the Tokyo Olympics, by seeking help from European embassies, and she now lives in exile in Poland.