Yet More Ohno
I second Kevin at IA’s Bingo of the Korea Times article on Korea’s international standing in light of the US short track team not attending the World Cup round in Korea due to threats against Ohno.
So why comment on it now? Because of a late article from the Joongang Daily. In the Joongang Daily article we get a different view of the pullout from Brian Lee, about whom I know absolutely nothing. He states at the close of the rather sterile article:
It is not uncommon for skaters to skip tournaments. The International Skating Union has 57 members in short track skating but only 18 nations are participating at the Jeonju World Cup.
It is not uncommon for skaters to skip tournaments??? As I don’t know anything about Brian Lee, I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is purely and simply stating a provable fact and is not offering a completely stupid and idiotic opinion on, justification for, or whitewashing of the circumstances surrounding Ohno and the US teams withdrawal from this round of the World Cup of short track competition.
On this assumption, I will go easy on Brian and only say that even if it is only a statement of fact, it is a stupid and completely idiotic thing to say under the circumstances. Yeah. Maybe it is not uncommon for skaters to skip tournaments, but how uncommon is it for skaters to skip tournamets held in allegedly first world countries sponsoring world-class events because the FBI and local police could not guarantee that skater’s safety or even his survival due to the intense hatred of that skater and the hundreds, if not thousands, of death threats against him because of perceived bad sportsmanship by the skater nearly two years previously in a sports event that virtually no one cares about? I would guess that the answer to that question is: so uncommon as to actually have never occurred before.