South Korea’s Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yu-na traded accusations with her former coach yesterday as their rift descended into a public slanging match.
In a statement posted on her blog, Kim said Canadian coach Brian Orser — himself a two-time Olympic medalist — was using the media to create controversy over the end to their professional relationship.
“A coach and a skater can part ways with each other for one reason or other ... I am disappointed and hurt that the media was used to announce our split and its details were unable to be kept only between us,” she wrote.
PHOTO: AFP
“I can’t really let people believe in lies and criticize innocent people,” she said.
Their split was made public on Tuesday, with representatives of Kim and Orser each saying the other party had initiated the break.
Kim’s agency said relations had been “uncomfortable” since another skater asked Orser to coach her.
Orser retaliated on Wednesday in an interview with the Toronto Star, blaming Kim’s mother, Park Mi-hee — who runs her agency, AT Sports — for firing him for “no valid reason.”
“It came out of the blue,” he said.
“They just felt that we had not given much attention to Yu-na, but at the same time she was kind of talking out of both sides of her mouth,” Orser said. “She had told us to move forward with other students.”
He said Kim had been excluded from the decision.
“Because of all this turmoil with her mother, she doesn’t know what’s going on,” he said.
Kim maintained Orser initiated the split and said she had “never done anything out of order” to him.
Kim has been training alone since June and will continue to train at the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club while she seeks a new coach, her agency said on Tuesday.
She has avoided questions on whether she will retire from the sport.
Under Orser’s tutelage, Kim won gold medals at last year’s World Championships and this year’s Winter Olympics, becoming South Korea’s first and only medalist in the sport.
Known as “Queen Yu-Na,” she has become a sporting icon in South Korea and featured with Orser in several TV commmercials.
Last August, Forbes magazine listed her as one of the highest-paid female athletes in the world, with annual earnings of US$9.7 million.
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