You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Belarusian. (February 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Belarusian Wikipedia article at [[:be:Аляксандра Віктараўна Герасіменя]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|be|Аляксандра Віктараўна Герасіменя}} to the talk page.
Aliaksandra Viktarauna Herasimenia[a] (born 31 December 1985) is a Belarusian former swimmer.[1]
After a medal-winning career, including gold at the 2012 World Championships and silver at the 2012 London Olympics, she became a critic of the Lukashenko regime in Belarus, and now lives in exile in Poland.[2]
Despite a two-year ban for a positive test for norandrosterone in 2003,[3] Herasimenia returned to win gold medals at both the European and World Championships.
Herasimenia is a founder of the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation (BSSF), a group that supports athletes jailed or sidelined for their political views. In April 2021, she sold her 2012 world championship gold medal to raise funds for the foundation and for legal fees[6] after facing charges from the Belarus Government for criticising them on social media.[7]
She was one of the supporters of Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who was threatened with enforced return to Belarus from the Tokyo Olympics after criticising team coaches. Herasimenia sought assistance for Tsimanouskaya from a number of European embassies.[citation needed]