Korea, “Not Participating in the Closing Ceremony”

The Korean athletes, who are currently participating in the 19th 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics, are taking strong measures of filing a lawsuit at the U.S. court and, in the worst case, being absent in the final ceremony in relations with the biased decision during the Short-track event.

"We are to file a lawsuit at the Utah district court against the judges, including chief referee James Hewish (Australia), who declared disqualification of Kim Dong-Sung (Korea Univ.) after he won the gold in the men’s Short-track 1500m finals. We’ve already finished the legal examination for the case with the best lawyer in the state of Utah." said the head of the Korean team, Park Sung-In, during the press interview that was held at Salt Lake Olympics Main Press Center on the 22nd.

Park also said, "We will decide whether to attend the final ceremony after observing further movements of the International Skating Union (ISU) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport, to which we made a protest and lawsuit institution."

Meanwhile, the ISU claimed that `there is no fault in the decision`, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is known to have begun examining fairness in Kim’s disqualification. IOC is to mention the Short-track judging problem on the IOC executive committee meeting on the 23rd.

Sang-Soo Kim ssoo@donga.com