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.
Aged 21, the short-track skater has four Olympic medals to her name, including relay golds at both Sochi 2014 and on home ice at this year’s Pyeongchang Games.
But she told a court that her coach Cho Jae-beom had been beating her since she was seven — on one occasion breaking her fingers — leaving her “deeply traumatised”.
His violence “kept escalating” as she grew older, she said at the hearing in Suwon, south of Seoul. “He frequently beat me and verbally abused me since I was seven… at one point beating me with an ice hockey stick and breaking my fingers,” she said.
Another time he hurled metal nuts at her, ripping open her forehead. Just weeks ahead of the Pyeongchang Olympics, “he kicked and punched me so hard, especially on my head, that I even thought ‘I could die here’,” she said, breaking down.
