Winter Olympics: South Korea speed skating champion’s Beijing hopes dashed after court refuses to overturn ban
- Shim Suk-hee was suspended for two months by Korea Skating Union over series of exploitive laden texts she sent to a coach
- Seoul Eastern District Court threw out her petition for a court injunction, ending her hopes of competing next month
South Korean speedskating star Shim Suk-hee’s Beijing Olympic hopes were dashed on Tuesday as she lost a court battle over a two-month ban that will rule her out of the Winter Games, local media reported.
Shim is one of her country’s most successful skaters, winning four Olympics short-track medals, including relay golds at the 2014 and 2018 Games.
She was handed a two-month suspension by the Korea Skating Union (KSU) in December over expletive-laden texts about her teammates, leaving her participation at the Beijing Games hanging by a thread.
Shim, 24, sought a court injunction in the hope of overturning the ban but the Seoul Eastern District Court threw out her petition, Yonhap news agency reported.
The court agreed with the KSU that her messages “violated the national team’s code of conduct”, a KSU official told Yonhap after the verdict was announced.
Her texts, sent to her coach during the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, were first reported by local media in October.
In them, Shim suggested she could trip her teammate Choi Min-jeong if they competed in the same race at Pyeongchang.
