Bad News for Defectors
Determined to paddle his own canoe in the West, Vladas Cesiunas, 39, slipped away from a Soviet sports team at Frankfurt airport in August, while en route to the World Canoe Championships in Duisburg. A gold medal winner in the 1972 Olympics, the Soviet canoeing star was quickly granted political asylum in West Germany, and thus became the first of the well-known Soviet sport and dance personalities who have defected to the West in the past two months, a group that includes Bolshoi Ballet Star Alexander Godunov and Skaters Oleg Protopopov and Ludmila Belousova.
What happened to Cesiunas...
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