Belarussian

He has played 24 Ligue 1 games for Lens after an £84,000 move in July 2023 from Belarussian side Energetik-BGU.

I ask him whether Vladimir Putin has ever asked Lukashenko to provide Belarussian troops for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

The unknown factor is the presence of Russian and — to a lesser extent — Belarussian athletes.

The news comes a day after a 31-year-old Belarussian woman apparently fell to her death trying to escape a brown bear in the nearby Low Tatra mountains.

Forecasting is particularly difficult this time with most Russian and Belarussian athletes likely to be excluded because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago.