Skating union under fire for soft punishment

By Nam Hyun-woo

The Korea Skating Union (KSU) is under fire for the allegedly soft punishment it handed down Thursday for a short-track speed skater who beat up a junior skater during a national team training session last month.

Despite it being an obvious act of violence, the skating body’s athletes committee issued a mere “warning” to the skater in an apparent bid to protect him from losing eligibility to appear at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games.

In explaining the rationale behind that decision, the KSU said, “Though violence should not be tolerated in any way, the injured party provided the cause of the attack. Since the athletes committee can only punish the attacker with a warning or suspension, it determined suspension far outweighed his wrongdoing, thus its only option was issuing a warning.”

Though the union did not identify the assailant, Shin Da-woon, 22, was the one who beat the junior skater about the face for touching his ankle while passing him during a training session at the Korea National Training Center, also known as the Taeneung Training Center, on the outskirts of Seoul on Sept. 16. The KSU explained that the two were doing “training to maintain leads,” and passing is customarily forbidden to prevent injuries.

Some of the criticism being leveled at the KSU relates to how it has interpreted the incident. By saying “the victim provided the cause,” some suggest the union was hinting that the victim deserved the treatment he received.

Critics believe the KSU is protecting Shin because he has bagged several gold medals in International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup Short Track Speed Skating 1,500-meter and 3,000-meter events in recent years, and has a chance to win gold for Korea at the PyeongChang Games.

If Shin were suspended for any length of time, his bid to appear at the Olympics on home soil would be virtually over because the Korean Olympic Committee, the umbrella committee of the country’s sports federations, mandates that any athlete or coach slapped with suspension of less than three years cannot represent Korea for three years from the day his or her suspension has expired. If he was punished, Shin would miss a series of national team tryouts, with the most recent one slated for Oct. 5, and a slew of ISU events scheduled in the coming months.

“Suspension would be too harsh of a decision compared to the attacker’s fault,” the KSU statement read.

The KSU said it has done a variety of things to prevent violence, doping and other types of acts that infringe on athletes’ rights, but it realizes more needs to be done.

The KSU said the athletes committee advised there could be additional action taken against Shin by other organizations.