Kim Dong-Sung may be best known for his controversial disqualification from a 2002 Olympic short-track speed skating race that would give American Apolo Anton Ohno gold, but now the South Korean gold medalist is returning to the headlines not as a victim, rather as the accused.
The Washington Post reported last month that six skaters have alleged that Kim, who has been coaching speed skaters for various clubs in the Washington suburbs since retiring in 2002, has struck either them or fellow students with hockey sticks, a hammer and blade guards as a type of corporal punishment.
“If we didn’t meet expectations, he would usually punish us,” one youth skater told The Post. “He took a friend and me into the locker room and hit our butts repeatedly with a hockey stick.”
Beyond issuing a warning letter to Kim, U.S. Speedskating, the sport’s national governing body that first received reports of the abuse allegations last spring, took no further action against Kim, the newspaper said. Officials said the case lacked concrete evidence, since the alleged victims never contacted police. Kim denied the allegations in an interview with The Post, citing the lack of police and other official involvement as proof of his innocence. “If all of these things were true, U.S. Speedskating would have taken my license permanently away. They didn’t even investigate,” he was quoted as saying.
Kim, who had coached at clubs in Virginia and Maryland, has since started his own in northern Virginia known as DS Speedskating. Brad Olch, U.S. Speedskating’s interim executive director when the allegations came to light, told The Post it was disturbing Kim is still coaching, noting that a “group of Korean parents who wanted their kids to succeed supported his methods.”
Kim won 12 world titles, including a gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics.
