REPORT: Lim files complaint against Bell: alleged bullying, interference

[yuzuangel]

Also this agency is owned by Yuna Kim, it's a legit agency and it just sounds like they're protecting their skaters. Which honestly I'm glad for because it doesn't seem like anyone is protecting Eunsoo right now.

[shanshani]

The reactions have been so disappointing. We have no idea what the situation is like in Lakewood and whether the agency tried to pursue other forms of recourse. It's entirely possible that Eunsoo was 1. involved in the decision to go public 2. felt like she had no other choice. Sometimes victims of abuse have to go public because they aren't able to fix the situation privately. Saying stuff like "this should never have been made public" is effectively telling victims to shut up and not make waves. Yes, going public has predictable bad consequences, but maybe going public is the only way to pressure the people involved to actually do something. Victims should not be pressured into staying silent to protect the reputation of abusers, but once more a large portion of the US figure skating community appears all too happy to silence potential victims.

 

Of course, it's also possible this is a misunderstanding--I'm not saying that Eunsoo's agency is 100% right and that Mariah is 100% a bully. But the point is, "we don't know" means we don't know--that applies to everything, from whether Mariah intentionally hurt Eunsoo, to whether the agency has good reason to think that this was their best option, to whether Eunsoo was involved or not in her agency's decision. People are capable of all kinds irrational behavior, self-delusion, tunnel vision, and denialism, so there's a lot of things that could have happened, and we have no reason to think any particular interpretation of the situation is correct, nor would it be reasonable to conclude that x couldn't have happened because "that would be a stupid decision" or "y person couldn't possibly be like that."  (I also don't understand how it's possible to be confident you have determined someone's intention from watching a video--it's easy to make something intentional look unintentional, and sometimes things that aren't intentional look like they are.)

 

Finally, no one should be harassing anybody, even if Mariah was 100% a bully and hurt Eunsoo 100% on purpose, because the appropriate punishment for that is suspension from the sport and assault charges, not death threats from random people on the internet.

[hopeandlegacy2018]

Korean fans are too passionate sigh. The things they say to Mariah on social media are out of control. I hope she gets a body guard, cuz people threaten to kill her. She’ll probably end up like Adelina, who’s hated till this day. From those comments, it seems like a lot of them don’t really know much about figure skating though. 

[hoodie axel]

3 hours ago, yuzuangel said:

Also this agency is owned by Yuna Kim, it's a legit agency and it just sounds like they're protecting their skaters. Which honestly I'm glad for because it doesn't seem like anyone is protecting Eunsoo right now.

Yes, there have been enough allegations about "evil agents" who've done this. It's an agency owned by someone who's STILL South Korea's top celebrity. Maybe the collision was unintentional, we do not know, but there have been allegations of bullying as well, and clearly Lim felt something was off and has been for a while, if they're pressing this matter. I do so wish the news reporters had used better headlines, but from what I've seen the sensationalism isn't even coming from the more respected Korean sites, but some Western ones (the "stabbing" one isn't Korean, I don't think, nor is the "Tonya Harding 2.0" stuff -- so much for Korean clickbait!) and some others known to be not reliable. TSL just did their usual sensationalist thing, too.

 

The news sites absolutely should apply pressure if it's been alleged via the agency. Why should they let it go? ATS has spoken, and I think it's an actual matter that deserves serious investigation. It's also a way to pressure the Korean Fed into doing something.

 

43 minutes ago, hopeandlegacy2018 said:

Korean fans are too passionate sigh. The things they say to Mariah on social media are out of control. I hope she gets a body guard, cuz people threaten to kill her. She’ll probably end up like Adelina, who’s hated till this day.

This isn't the Sochi incident. Sorry. It's alleged racism and intentional harm, far more serious than a medal many felt was taken away from Kim. No, Bell shouldn't get death threats, but using this comparison to say fans are too passionate is ridiculous. Korea sent their skater to be trained overseas and it is being alleged that racist harassment has been going on. They feel insulted and scared for one of their own, and angered about her treatment in a foreign land. 

[hoodie axel]

Also, might I add, a lot of the people who think they're "defending" Bell and/or Raf's camp are giving a horrifying masterclass of how to be as tone-deaf and unaware as possible on issues of racism. Bell can't possibly be racist because she's friends with Chen and Honda? Please.

 

This is horrible: 

 

[jinxxoo]

I saw that one grainy video. From what I can see

Mariah was skating backwards, then turned forward. 

Eunsoo was staying out of the way by the boards and Maria was coming up behind her. 

Maria doesn't appear to have stopped or slowed down during the run through after the accident would have taken place. She could've been unaware or just didn't care, I have no way of telling from the blurry footage.

 

Eunsoo definitely did not do anything wrong though like some article suggested, 'that she should've stayed out of the way,'

She is out of the way! She's just circling by the board. And her back to Mariah.

Whether this was intentional, that's hard to judge. But unless Mariah was unaware that she injured a fellow skater, it's poor sportsmanship at the very least.

This could be an accident, but piling blame on Eunsoo was not the way to go in journalism.

 

[yuzuangel]

9 minutes ago, jinxxoo said:

I saw that one grainy video. From what I can see

Mariah was skating backwards, then turned forward. 

Eunsoo was staying out of the way by the boards and Maria was coming up behind her. 

Maria doesn't appear to have stopped or slowed down during the run through after the accident would have taken place. She could've been unaware or just didn't care, I have no way of telling from the blurry footage.

 

Eunsoo definitely did not do anything wrong though like some article suggested, 'that she should've stayed out of the way,'

She is out of the way! She's just circling by the board. And her back to Mariah.

Whether this was intentional, that's hard to judge. But unless Mariah was unaware that she injured a fellow skater, it's poor sportsmanship at the very least.

This could be an accident, but piling blame on Eunsoo was not the way to go in journalism.

 

Which video?

[jinxxoo]

22 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

Which video?

Check out @cbrennansports’s Tweet:

Extremely blurry warning

[WinForPooh]

3 hours ago, jinxxoo said:

Check out @cbrennansports’s Tweet:

Extremely blurry warning

 

I feel like it would take better skating skills than Mariah has to intentionally slice Eunsoo open like that without losing the slightest bit of speed and without losing form at all. But this is a very blurry video and there's really no way to tell. Anyway, if somebody decides to cause a spur of the moment 'accident', how on earth do you figure out if they intended it? Unless Mariah skated over and spinning heel kicked Eunsoo or something, you can't actually decide intention. But Mariah obviously did cause harm there whether she intended it or not, and I haven't seen anything where she went and checked on Eunsoo, who was in a great deal of distress and left the ice, so it feels very... wrong. 

 

Honestly, it's the rest of the complaint that's more worrying, and it shouldn't be that difficult to check if it's true. It would be easy to find sources to confirm if the two skaters have been kept apart at their training rink because of tension. Instead of all this nonsense reporting, the English speaking media should be making a few calls to the rink, and to skaters who also practice there, and get a few quotes for background. Even if anonymous, if a story is confirmed by more than two sources, it's got weight. If that part turns out to be true, even if this particular incident turns out to have been an accident, Eunsoo still has plenty of grounds to demand an investigation. Bullying is bad without actual blood being spilled, too. Especially racist bullying. 

 

TSL though. Wow. Well it is nice to get back to level ground, it was very unsettling to defend those idiots when they were being bullied earlier! At least that part of universe has settled down to the normal, expected state. 

[utsukushii3A]

3 hours ago, jinxxoo said:

Check out @cbrennansports’s Tweet:

Extremely blurry warning

 

Oh dear. That is definitely Mariah's usual choreography. It looks like Eunsoo was standing at a part where Mariah gets close to the boards and her blade gets even closer.

 

While neither I nor anyone who doesn't train with them knows what their relationship is like otherwise, it does seem like the ISU's assessment was correct that at least from the video, there is nothing indicating that this was intentional.

 

Indeed, this article shows that Mariah's eyes were almost closed and she was not facing Eunsoo before whatever happened:

https://www.allkpop.com/article/2019/03/photos-of-lim-eun-soos-injury-revealed-mariah-bell-officially-apologizes

 

But I suppose none of that matters in the court of public opinion.

 

 

As for Mariah going to check on Eunsoo, wouldn't Eunsoo have been somewhere else getting medical attention by the time Mariah was finished with her program? She might not have seen her again to have a chance to apologize, or even known she had cut her to try to find her and apologize. I'm not saying that's what happened, but no one speculating about it knows for sure whether it is or isn't.

[WinForPooh]

6 minutes ago, utsukushii3A said:

 

Oh dear. That is definitely Mariah's usual choreography. It looks like Eunsoo was standing at a part where Mariah gets close to the boards and her blade gets even closer.

 

While neither I nor anyone who doesn't train with them knows what their relationship is like otherwise, it does seem like the ISU's assessment was correct that at least from the video, there is nothing indicating that this was intentional.

 

Indeed, this article shows that Mariah's eyes were almost closed and she was not facing Eunsoo before whatever happened:

https://www.allkpop.com/article/2019/03/photos-of-lim-eun-soos-injury-revealed-mariah-bell-officially-apologizes

 

But I suppose none of that matters in the court of public opinion.

 

That just means the photo was taken when Mariah was blinking, that doesn't actually mean anything. I assume Mariah's eyes were open a split second before and after that and so she was aware that there was a person standing right there hugging the boards, like skaters not doing their rt are expected to do.

[jinxxoo]

Again, whether intentional or not may be difficult to determine, see better clip (seems like Mariah at least felt the impact looking at her free leg)

Check out @MinsooKay’s Tweet:

I wonder why no English media looked into the longer term bullying claim as far as I can see in terms of are the two skaters actually skating in different sessions and using different locker rooms as claimed.

Also, accidents happen on ice. The athletes know better than anyone else. Remember when Eunsoo collided with (?Satoko) during one of the the GP events, but there was no problem/complaints at that time because everyone knew it was an accident. I found it strange that there would be reason for Eunsoo/her team to not think this is also just another accident, which brings up the longer term bullying issue that should be looked into at the very least.

[WinForPooh]

3 minutes ago, jinxxoo said:

Again, whether intentional or not may be difficult to determine, see better clip (seems like Mariah at least felt the impact looking at her free leg)

Check out @MinsooKay’s Tweet:

I wonder why no English media looked into the longer term bullying claim as far as I can see in terms of are the two skaters actually skating in different sessions and using different locker rooms as claimed.

Also, accidents happen on ice. The athletes know better than anyone else. Remember when Eunsoo collided with (?Satoko) during one of the the GP events, but there was no problem/complaints at that time because everyone knew it was an accident. I found it strange that there would be reason for Eunsoo/her team to not think this is also just another accident, which brings up the longer term bullying issue that should be looked into at the very least.

 

Yeah that does kinda look like Mariah felt some kind of impact on her free leg and just kept right on skating. Maybe she didn't mean to do it, but it didn't seem to mean much to her that she did it, at that point. 

 

And yeah, if somebody's been bullying you for a while, if then they end up causing you an injury, you would tend to not give them the benefit of the doubt that it was an accident. Especially if they didn't check on you or see if you were okay or apologise until there was public pressure to do so. 

[hopeandlegacy2018]

I wonder if Lim or her parents have ever spoken to Bell or the coaching team directly about any of their concerns up front. Or did Lim’s side just keep silent about everything and suddenly drop an article accusing Bell, leaving everyone confused. We’ll probably never find out, adding to the collection of FS mysteries. 

 

When skaters do their run throughs, they tend to be quite concentrated, especially before going into a jump. At least that’s the case at my rink. 

[jinxxoo]

9 minutes ago, hopeandlegacy2018 said:

I wonder if Lim or her parents have ever spoken to Bell or the coaching team directly about any of their concerns up front. Or did Lim’s side just keep silent about everything and suddenly drop an article accusing Bell, leaving everyone confused. We’ll probably never find out, adding to the collection of FS mysteries. 

 

When skaters do their run throughs, they tend to be quite concentrated, especially before going into a jump. At least that’s the case at my rink. 

One of the initial article translations said their training rink team changed them to different sessions and to use different locker rooms due to some ongoing bullying/concern, that's why I'm surprised that no one has at least looked into that on the English media side as far as I can tell, that shouldn't be that difficult to confirm.