Speedskating: Olympians back embattled coach Chun

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Speedskating: Olympians back embattled coach Chun

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They said they haven't seen any of the alleged acts of abuse.

19 September,2012 11:18 am

Nine USA speedskaters, including Olympic bronze medal winner Lana Gehring, have come to the defence of besieged national team head coach Chun Jae-Su.Gehring, Jessica Smith and seven other teammates described abuse allegations against Chun as a false attack on his character.In a statement issued Tuesday, Gehring and Smith said they dont believe there are any grounds for the allegations directed at short track coach Chun or his assistant coach Yeo Jun-Hyung.They said they havent seen any of the alleged acts of abuse that some of the other skaters have described in a complaint to the US Olympic Committee.A USOC spokesman said earlier that the organization is probing allegations that Chun slammed an athlete against a wall, threw bottles and chairs at skaters, and told women skaters they were fat.Neither Chun nor Yeo has been charged with any crimes by the police.The nine skaters on Tuesday said Chun cares about his students and while he demands a lot of them they also believed he was the coach best suited to lead them into the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.US Speedskating said Monday that Chun was being placed on administrative leave and Yeo put in charge while an independent law firm probes the complaints.Chun led the US team at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics where the short track skaters won a half dozen medals. Chuns star athletes at those Games were Katherine Reutter and Apolo Ohno, who are not part of the complaint.Nineteen athletes did file a grievance over Chuns alleged behaviour and the federations failure to stop it, and 14 signed a code of conduct complaint with the USOC on August 30.The American long track team is not part of the allegations against Chun who is the former coach of the South Korean national team.