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Park Chan-kyong

South Korean Olympic athlete Shim Suk-hee has accused her former coach, who is already serving a 10-month jail sentence for assault, of raping her repeatedly since she was a teenager.
Cho Jae-beom was convicted in September of beating and abusing Shim and three other skaters over a seven-year period.

In her latest complaint filed last month, the 21-year-old Shim accused Cho of multiple rapes and sexual assaults beginning in 2014 when she was a high school student, said her lawyer Lim Sang-hyuk.
“She has been repeatedly subjected to these crimes since she was a teenager and the depth of her traumatic wounds is beyond description,” he told SBS News.
Cho’s lawyers have denied the allegations.
Yet Shim maintains that Cho’s sexual abuse continued until around two months before the opening of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February 2018.
She was unable to tell the truth earlier because of Cho’s threat that the revelation could ruin her sports career, her lawyer said.
‘He broke my fingers with a hockey stick’: South Korean skater tells court of abuse
Abuse allegations against Cho first came to light in January 2018, just weeks before the Pyeongchang Olympics, when Shim unilaterally left the national team training facility, apparently to avoid further assaults.
In December, Shim told an appeal court of the years of abuse she suffered at Cho’s hands.
She said Cho had been beating her since she was seven and at one point beat her with an ice hockey stick and broke her fingers, leaving her “deeply traumatised”.
His violence “kept escalating” as she grew older, she said at the hearing in Suwon, south of Seoul.
Just weeks before the Pyeongchang Olympics, “he kicked and punched me so hard, especially on my head, that I even thought ‘I could die here,’” she told the court.
‘My life is not your porn’: South Korean women fight back against voyeurs
South Korea is a regional sporting power that is regularly in the top 10 medal places at the Summer and Winter Olympics. It is the only Asian country other than Japan to have hosted both Games.
But in an already intensely competitive society, winning is everything in its sports community where coaches hold immense sway over athletes’ careers, and physical and verbal abuse are known to be rife. Those who speak out are liable to be sidelined and castigated as “traitors”.
Additional reporting by the Agence France-Presse.


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South Korea

South Korean Olympic skater Shim Suk-hee accuses physically abusive coach of sexual assault

South Korea's Shim Suk Hee (foreground) competes at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. Photo: AFP

This photo taken on December 17, 2018 shows South Korean Olympic short track champion Shim Suk-hee outside the Suwon District Court in Suwon, south of Seoul. - Double Olympic gold medallist Shim Suk-hee broke down in tears as she told a South Korean court of the years of abuse she suffered at the hands of her coach. (Photo by YONHAP / YONHAP / AFP) / - South Korea OUT / REPUBLIC OF KOREA OUT - NO ARCHIVES - RESTRICTED TO SUBSCRIPTION USE

Torment of young South Korean athletes raped and beaten by coaches at training camps

The training camp system has proven to be the setting for abuse in several sports - especially of underage athletes whose existence is controlled by their trainers

South Korea's Shim Suk Hee (L) and China's Liu Qiuhong compete in the Women's Short Track 1000 m Heats at the Iceberg Skating Palace during the Sochi Winter Olympics on February 18, 2014. AFP PHOTO / JUNG YEON-JE

This photo taken on May 29, 2018 shows former South Korean tennis player Kim Eun-hee leaving after an interview with AFP in Seoul. Kim spoke to international media for the first time and waived all rights to anonymity to reveal how female athletes in South Korea have silently suffered sexual abuse by their coaches. / AFP PHOTO / Jung Yeon-je

Kim Eun-hee: ‘I was horrified to see that my rapist continued to coach young tennis players for more than a decade as if nothing had happened’. Photo: AFP

News

Asia

East Asia

In her latest complaint, the 21-year-old accuses Cho Jae-beom of multiple rapes and sexual assaults beginning in 2014, when she was in high school


Crime

Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018

Sexual harassment and assault