South Korean speed skater Shim Suk-hee barred from training following leaked text messages
Shim has apologized for “disappointing and scarring many individuals with my immature phrases, habits and perspective on the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics,” in a press release launched by her administration Galaxia SM.
“I particularly want to ask for forgiveness from the underside of my coronary heart to Kim A-lang, Choi Min-jeong and the teaching employees who would have been shocked by the information,” she added within the assertion.
Within the textual content messages, Shim mentioned she cheered on China’s Qu Chuyu on the girls’s 500m quarterfinals on the 2018 Winter Olympics, as a substitute of her teammate Choi.
When Choi cried in an interview after being disqualified within the 500m ultimate, Shim texted: “That interview was garbage.”
Shim even mentioned that the South Korean brief monitor 3,000m relay girls’s staff ought to have been disqualified after profitable gold along with her teammates.
“I am embarrassed that we gained a gold,” Shim texted to the coach, who replied: “I am embarrassed.”
Choi’s administration firm, All That Sports activities, launched a press release on Tuesday citing its CEO Koo Dong-hoi’s concern over the “unpatriotic act” Shim may carry out at subsequent 12 months’s Olympics after she had supported a Chinese language skater on the earlier Video games.
“Supporting a nationwide teammate’s Chinese language opponent at a public area, at an Olympics held in our nation, regardless of her teammate competing, can’t be understood with frequent sense as she’s a nationwide athlete with a Taegeuk [Korean flag] mark on her chest,” Koo mentioned.
Shim mentioned she was mentally and bodily unstable on the time attributable to former coach Cho’s abuse, which gave her concussion signs.
“I could not management the anger in me, so I am nonetheless reflecting on displaying an aggressive perspective and immature aspect of me to others,” she mentioned, citing Cho’s abuse.
Attainable race fixing
On high of mocking her teammates, Shim can also be accused of alleged race fixing on the brief monitor girls’s 1,000m ultimate in Pyeongchang.
Shim and the unnamed coach point out “Bradbury” a number of occasions of their textual content messages days earlier than the ultimate. The coach texted: “You probably have power, let’s make Bradbury,” to which Shim agreed.
Steven Bradbury is an Australian pace skater famend for profitable essentially the most surprising gold on the 2002 Winter Olympics. He was left to cross the end line alone as all the opposite rivals within the race tumbled and fell on the ice.
The 2 talked about making a feminine Bradbury a number of occasions of their textual content messages.
Throughout the 1,000m ultimate on the 2018 Winter Olympics, Shim and Choi tangled and collided on the ice as they raced on the outer course of the monitor. Choi completed 4th and Shim was disqualified, resulting in hypothesis in gentle of the textual content messages that she could have intentionally precipitated the collision.
However Shim, in her assertion, absolutely denied the chance that she was race fixing.
“I would prefer to make clear the half within the article that acknowledged that I fell down deliberately on the Olympics, referring to Bradbury, shouldn’t be true in any respect,” Shim mentioned, whereas apologizing for scarring her teammates.
Choi’s representatives requested that the Korea Skating Union (KSU) and the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC) look into the case and confirm the details relating to attainable intentional collision.
Koo acknowledged: “Choi Min-jeong had not solely missed her promising probability to win a gold after colliding along with her teammate, however she was additionally severely injured … as she damage her knee ligaments within the collision.”
He added that if Shim and the coach did try to intentionally engineer a state of affairs just like Bradbury’s, the matter must be thought-about a “prison act” that harmed Choi.
Separated from the nationwide staff
Shim turned a nationwide icon after sharing her expertise of sexual abuse.
However now the nation’s Ministry of Tradition, Sports activities and Tourism is suspending its plan to honor Shim at its Nationwide Sports activities Award ceremony on Friday till a ultimate conclusion is produced from the investigation by the KSU and KSOC, the ministry official confirmed to CNN.
The KSU quickly banned Shim from the nationwide coaching heart on Monday, separating her from the remainder of the nationwide staff.
“We predict it is troublesome [for Shim and the national team] to remain and practice collectively … We have to examine the problems, so we determined that we should not rapidly maintain them within the nationwide staff collectively proper now,” the KSU official informed CNN.
Shim has been dropped from the nationwide staff forward of the Worldwide Skating Union’s brief monitor pace skating world cup, set to kick off in Beijing subsequent week, however she may nonetheless compete within the 2022 Beijing Olympics if the investigation finds no fault.
The KSU and KSOC are at the moment forming an investigation committee that may start trying into the case by checking the details and listening to the tales of the people concerned.
For the reason that committee itself doesn’t have authorized pressure, it should primarily deal with recreation operations like attainable intentional collision, the KSU official mentioned.
Shim will replicate on her “previous immature perspective” and attempt — as she has been doing — to point out a greater self, she mentioned within the assertion the place she emphasised that there isn’t a connection between her textual content messages and the 1,000m ultimate.
