Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Athletes' human rights under spotlight after tragic death
The late triathlete Choi Suk-hyun receives a gold medal at the 2013 National Maritime Sports Games in Ulsan, 400 kilometers southeast of Seoul, in these photos provided by Choi's family, Thusday. Yonhap
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
The death of 22-year-old female triathlete Choi Sook-hyun has brought human rights of Korean athletes to the fore, sparking public uproar over allegations that she was abused and assaulted for years by her coach and physiotherapist.
The Sports Fair Committee under the Korea Triathlon Association is scheduled to meet on Monday to discuss Choi's death. To prove the association's commitment to preventing abuse of athletes, the committee is expected to discuss permanently expelling the coach, physiotherapist and senior athletes who allegedly engaged in abusing Choi.
The move came after Choi was found dead in her Busan residence on June 26. In the last message sent to her mother, she wrote “Please bring the crimes of those who abused me to light,” referring to the Gyeongju City Hall triathlon team in North Gyeongsang Province. She moved to play for Busan City Hall in January and sued four former teammates for assault.
Coach of the late Choi Suk-hyun, a former Gyeongju City Hall triathlete who committed suicide on June 26 after allegedly being abused by her coach and her team's physiotherapist, arrives at Gyeongju Sports Council in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, Thursday. Yonhap
The Gyeongsangbukdo Office of Education announced Friday that it will conduct a survey on 3,930 student athletes from 370 sports teams in the province from July 6 to 17 to detect school sports teams' violence of student athletes and the status of their human rights.
The education office said all school sports departments in elementary, middle and high schools in the province are subject to the inspection. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism launched its own investigation last week.
The incident has also unleashed a storm of complaints over the handling of Choi's case against her teammates, and other athletes and coaches.
“I can't believe her physiotherapist was the one who abused her the most brutally among others. He should have been protecting her from such circumstances as a medical worker having medical knowledge,” a former national handball team coach said on condition of anonymity.
Choi's former teammates will hold a press conference Monday to speak out for the late athlete at the National Assembly.
Rep. Lee Yong of the United Future Party, a former head coach of the national bobsleigh team, set up a taskforce to look into the incident. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea is also pushing for a special hearing on the issue.
According to the victim's family and recording files that Choi saved, she was forced to eat 200,000 won worth of bakery products and vomit them up. “The reason was I gained weight,” she said.
Also, she was slapped more than 20 times in the face and beaten on her chest and stomach, “because I ate one peach without letting them know.”
In one recording, a male voice is heard saying “Come here and clamp your jaws together. You should be slapped,” and a slapping sound follows. In a journal she wrote, Choi said she shed tears every day, and she would “rather die” if she kept being “beaten like a dog.”
While Choi named the team's coach, physiotherapist and one athlete senior as the main perpetrators, all the accused denied their wrongdoings.
The public is outraged by the fact that Choi filed six complaints with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, an independent body probing human rights violation, only to be ignored.
“I am shocked to hear what happened to the victim. This is beyond imagination. But unfortunately, I also have to say that it's not completely new in the sports community,” said the former coach who led the national team for more than 10 years, referring to another recent incident where a Korea National Sports University student was booked for threatening a younger colleague with a knife.
“We need a systematic approach to prevent the same thing from happening again,” the former coach said, suggesting human rights workshops for members of the sports community. “Talking about solutions after incidents happen doesn't really help. We need to act to prevent other tragedies from happening.”