Rapid-forward to 2022, and issues have enormously modified for Shim forward of subsequent month’s Iciness Olympics in Beijing.
After two months of investigations, a Korea Skating Union (KSU) committee introduced December 21 it used to be postponing Shim from the nationwide workforce for 2 months, announcing she had “marred the honour of athletes.”
To overturn the suspension, Shim had the choice of interesting to the Korean Recreation & Olympic Committee’s (KSOC) Sports activities Truthful Play Committee or taking the case to court docket.
All of it started in October 2021, when Shim’s textual content messages with a former nationwide ladies’s skating trainer had been leaked. Within the messages, Shim mocked her teammates and mentioned creating a “Bradbury,” elevating suspicions of race solving.
In December, KSU’s investigation committee additionally appeared right into a collision between Shim and her teammate Choi Min-jeong all over the 1,000-meter ultimate in Pyeongchang 4 years in the past and concluded that Shim had deliberately used her proper arm to push Choi’s left arm all over the race.
The committee, then again, didn’t formally conclude the rate of race solving as there used to be no proof to end up Shim’s intentions.
The KSU’s Truthful Play Committee, which administers self-discipline, later suspended Shim for 2 months for “marring the honour of athletes” as she admitted to disparaging her teammates in a sequence of textual content messages.
Responsibility of maintaining dignity and unlawful leaking of texts
As a part of her enchantment to compete in Beijing, Shim filed an injunction to boost the two-month ban in January, however the Seoul Japanese District Court docket disregarded the request on January 18.
The court docket dominated that she had violated a countrywide athlete’s responsibility to care for dignity together with her textual content messages, because the exchanges had been despatched all over the Iciness Olympics when Shim represented South Korea, a KSU reliable stated in a observation.
Shim’s felony consultant, who’s unauthorized to talk at the report, instructed CNN that that they had argued in court docket whether or not it used to be truthful to incorporate the content material of private textual content messages within the responsibility of a countrywide athlete to care for dignity.
Her aspect additionally claimed the textual content messages had been illegally leaked to the media by means of former trainer Cho Jae-beom, who have been discovered to blame and sentenced to a 13-year jail time period for the rape and sexual attack of Shim.
Shim’s consultant stated they instructed the court docket that the private messages being leaked allegedly by means of Cho amounted to a “secondary victimization” of Shim.
The KSU countered that the “strict rule of proof” does no longer practice to civil complaints and that the two-month suspension is the results of the union’s investigation; Shim had already publicly admitted to — and apologized for — mocking her teammates.
“The textual content messages had been exchanged with the belief that they wouldn’t be made public, however then had been leaked by means of different [Cho]’s legal act,” Shim’s consultant stated.
Over the top punishment, felony consultant says
Shim’s consultant additionally claimed the two-month suspension used to be over the top as she had already been dropped from the nationwide workforce in October and may just no longer compete within the World Skating Union Global Cup in November.
They stated the KSU didn’t mirror the “penalty” from October when discussing a separate, two-month suspension in December.
Alternatively, the KSU denied that it had issued a double punishment, claiming that keeping apart Shim from the remainder of the workforce used to be “no longer a disciplinary measure.”
In October, a KSU reliable instructed CNN that they separated Shim from the squad because it might be “tricky [for Shim and the national team] to stick and educate in combination” as her leaked textual content messages would impact the workforce dynamic and bringing up the will for an investigation.
Regardless of completing first on the nationwide Olympic trials in Would possibly, Shim can now not dream of competing in Beijing, which might were her 3rd Iciness Video games.
Her felony consultant instructed CNN that there are not any plans to enchantment because the court docket process takes time, and any determination could be not likely to come back sooner than the Olympics start in a couple of weeks and the two-month suspension ends on February 20.
With out Shim, South Korea nonetheless controlled to safe 5 spots for ladies’s short-track pace skating in Beijing. The KSU submitted its Olympic entrants — Choi Min-jeong, Lee Yu-bin, Kim A-lang, Website positioning Whi-min and Park Ji-yun — to the Korean Sports activities and Olympic Committee on January 24.
