Saturday, March 29, 2014

Korean coach accused of abuse

Some disturbing news coming out of South Korea where the national assistant coach has offered to resign amid accusations that he verbally abused the women's team.

South Korea's national curling assistant coach Choi Min-suk has offered to resign over allegations he verbally abused members of the women's Olympic team. 
This comes after the five curlers who represented South Korea at 2014 Olympics - Kim Ji-sun, Gim Un-chi, Shin Mi-sung, Um Min-ji and Lee Seul-bee - threatened to leave their semi-professional club at the Gyeonggi Provincial Government in protest over alleged abuse by head coach Chung Young-sup and assistant Choi.

In another story, the women have already quite, four over the abuse and one who left the team to care for her family.

Four members of the women’s national curling team have resigned, claiming their coaches had verbally and sexually abused them. 

So what exactly are the charges? They don't seem overly harsh but then again, I'm not South Korean and this could easily be a cultural thing.

According to the officials, Choi was giving a pep talk before the final at the World University Games in Trentino last December when he yelled, "you should all be serious about this or you might as well all quit." 
Choi also admitted to telling the curlers, "Do you like that I am holding your hand?" before insisting that he did not mean to sexually harass the athletes but offered to apologise if it was construed that way. 

There was also talk that the team was asked to donate some of the prize money they won from the Olympics and World Championships.

Another aspect of the complaint concerned prize money, with Choi insisting they had been asked to donate a proportion of the money earned at the Olympics and World Championships to help buy equipment for curling teams at middle and high schools. 

Two of the curlers opposed the idea, and they told officials the coach had scolded them for being selfish 

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