At the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics in Gangwon, South Korea, the Korean Skating Union (KSU) has filed a formal complaint with the International Skating Union (ISU) over a recent incident in which a Chinese athlete was suspected of intentionally committing a foul to win a medal.

The Chinese sports teams’ past record of cheating in international competitions has been under scrutiny repeatedly and has even triggered a wave of anti-Communist China sentiment among young people in South Korea.

The 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games kicked off on Jan. 20 in Gangwon Province, South Korea, with the men’s 1,000-meter short-track speed skating final taking place at the Gangneung Ice Sports Center.

On Jan. 21, South Korean speed skater Ju Jae-hee, who had won the men’s 1500-meter short track speed skating the day before, was in fierce competition with his Chinese opponent. With only five laps left to go, he was pushed away by Chinese skater Zhang Bohao and fell. In the end, Mr. Zhang and another Chinese athlete Zhang Xinzhe crossed the finish line in first and second place respectively.

At the end of the competition, the referee panel penalized Mr. Zhang Bohao for a foul and disqualified him from the race, but his fellow Chinese skater Mr. Zhang Xinche took the gold medal. Mr. Joo was relegated to 4th place.

The KSU responded to the referee panel decision, alleging that the Chinese skater “deliberately pushed Joo Jae-hee” to take the gold medal for their team. They sent a letter to the ISU to protest.

A KSU staff member told Yonhap news agency that the Chinese team not only violated the spirit of fair competition but also ran against the purpose of the Winter Youth Olympic Games. He emphasized that the official complaint was not a request to overturn the decision of the judges but to provide leadership in the future direction of the sport.

The KSU proposed an alternative solution for the future. The KSU staff suggested that when an intentional foul occurs during a short-track speed skating final at the Winter Youth Olympics, the judges declare a rematch. If such rules are put in place, the athletes would be able to compete honorably without abandoning the values of sportsmanship.

Chinese Team’s History of Fouls

In international short-track speed skating competitions, this is not the first time Chinese athletes have been accused of committing fouls against South Korean athletes. In the past, some Chinese athletes have gained notoriety in South Korea. For example, Fan Kexin, a Chinese short-track speed skater, became known as the “Queen of fouls” in South Korea.

Ms. Fan grabbed South Korean skater Shim Sukhee on the lower part of her knee in the women’s 500-meter final at the 2017 Sapporo Winter Asian Games, which was streamed live on air. In the women’s 3,000-meter relay at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, when the South Korean women’s team won the gold medal, the second-place Chinese team was eliminated after Ms. Fan was charged with a foul on the last leg. The ISU posted footage on its website of Ms. Fan shoving South Korean athlete Choi Minjeong.

In addition, Ms. Fan’s actions caused controversy in the women’s 500-meter quarterfinals of short-track speed skating at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. She pushed a sign block with her hand to trip a Canadian athlete in front of her, causing her rival to fall over. Although Ms. Fan fell as well, her Chinese teammate won the gold medal. The result made many wonder if it was a new “tactic” of the Chinese team.

This year’s Winter Youth Olympics is not the first time that the KSU has filed a complaint against the Chinese team. The last time this happened was during the 2022 Winter Olympics held in Beijing.

On Feb. 7, 2022, in the men’s 1,000-meter semi-final of short-track speed skating, South Korean athletes Hwang Dae-heon and Lee June-seo were disqualified for back-to-back fouls. They were ranked first and second in their group, but the judges canceled their results due to fouls, and Chinese athletes replaced them in the rankings. In the final, the Chinese athletes won the gold and silver medals in the event.

The South Koreans were dissatisfied with the penalty. Yoon Hong-geun, head of the South Korean team, said in a press conference that the South Korean team had written to the ISU and the International Olympic Committee to protest the penalty, and would try to take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Li Yuanhua, an expert on China and former associate professor at China’s Capital Normal University told The Epoch Times that if sports competitions were to become doing whatever is necessary to win, then regardless of the rules, it would simply be inconsistent with the spirit of sportsmanship.

“China under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is morally bankrupt, and to achieve their goals, they even use fouls as a strategy to win,” he said. “It is only when we see the true nature of the CCP that we can see the disgraceful acts of Chinese athletes on the sports field.”

“This time,” he explained, “the Chinese team has adopted this unscrupulous tactic of letting one person break the rules so that another can win the gold medal. This is the ugly face of the morally bankrupt Chinese regime, and they will be more and more recognized by the world in international competitions.”

Affect on National Election

The controversial penalty for the South Korean short-track speed skaters at the February 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing triggered an explosion of anti-communist sentiment in South Korea. A month later, anti-communist presidential candidate Yoon Suk Yeol was elected in the general election.

In a Feb. 9, 2022, report, South Korean newspaper Joongang Ilbo said the controversy over favoritism at the Beijing Winter Olympics unleashed anti-CCP sentiment among young Koreans. This generation is extremely sensitive to issues of “justice,” and many conclude from their own experiences in daily life that “China [the CCP] uses unfair methods.”

A team of researchers led by Shin Gi-wook, director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Walter H. Shorenestein APARC) at Stanford University, said in a Feb. 8, 2022, report that their survey of over 1,000 South Koreans before the Beijing Winter Olympics showed that on a scale of 0 to 100, South Koreans’ favorable opinion of China was only 26.5 points, far lower than the 69.1 points from Americans and even lower than the 30.7 points from the Japanese.

According to the report, an overwhelming majority (78 percent) of respondents said that the South Korea-China relationship would be an important factor in deciding which presidential candidate to vote for. This figure was even higher among younger Koreans in their 20s, and they were the most critical voting block in the election.

Jessica Mao contributed to this report.