'Garlic Girls' kick up stink over 'abuse and exploitation'

SEOUL - South Korea's 'Garlic Girls' have accused their coaches of exploitation and verbal abuse as their sporting dreams turn sour.

The five women, from a small rural town famous for farming the pungent bulb, shot to fame at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics this year by stunning top teams Canada and Switzerland in the curling competition.

Their giant-killing feats - despite limited funding for their little-known sport - quickly earned them celebrity status in their home country, with memes of the unlikely heroines going viral online.

But just months after becoming the first Asian curlers to claim Olympic silver, they say they are "miserable" and in a "desperate situation".

Sidelined from the national team, the women have slipped from seventh to 14th in the world rankings.

Former Korean Curling Federation (KCF) vice-president Kim Kyung-doo subjected them to "countless cases of verbal abuse", they said, and their coaches were imposing excessive control over their private lives.

The players accused the coaches of seeking to sideline captain Kim Eun-jung - whose trademark stare became an emblem of the Pyeongchang Games - after she married and announced her intent to start a family.

"The human rights of the athletes are being violated," the curlers wrote in a letter to the Korean Sports and Olympic Committee (KSOC).

"We've reached a point where it has become unbearable."

The coaches also held back the prize money from international competitions, the players added, reportedly amounting to tens of thousands of dollars since 2015.

The coaching staff denies the accusations.

National trials

The curlers are also known as 'Team Kim' for their shared surname, and use food-based nicknames for ease of identification. The captain is Annie - a brand of yogurt - Kim Yeong-mi is Pancake, Kim Kyeong-ae is Steak, Kim Seonyeong is Sunny - as in 'sunny side up' - and Kim Cho-hee is Chocho, a type of cookie.

They say they have been the unwitting victims of a power struggle within the Korean Curling Federation.

Kim Kyung-doo - the KCF official who they accuse of repeatedly berating them - is a long-standing backer of the team and the father of their head coach, whose husband oversees their administrative and financial affairs.

Kim is suing the KCF after he was dismissed for failing to organize an election for the presidency, which he was holding in an interim role. His daughter is also embroiled in a dispute with the governing body.

The coaches discouraged the Garlic Girls from competing in the national trials, the team claimed, in an effort to deprive the KCF of its star attraction.

In the event, the group entered at short notice but with little preparation and finished second. That left them unable to take part in international competitions with only the national representatives' costs covered by the KSOC, and the cash-strapped KCF unable to afford to send a second team.

"We were baffled when we were told not to try out for the national team," the curlers said, adding: "We cannot but think that we are being used in their personal dispute.

"We have been at a standstill since the Olympics and we are miserable."

'Not obedient'

In a separate interview with South Korean broadcaster SBS, the curlers accused the coaching staff of attempting to undermine captain Kim after she confronted them on the team's behalf.

"Each time I became someone who wasn't obedient," Kim Eun-jung told SBS.

The team's administrator, Jang Ban-seok, insisted everything the coaches did was in the interests of the curlers.

The team had to prepare for captain Kim's pregnancy plans, he said.

"Eun-jung is our only skip and we can't just rely on Eunjung," Jang told AFP.

"If Eun-jung becomes pregnant and leaves, we wouldn't have a skip."

In an emailed statement to reporters, Jang said all the team's prize money had been spent on overseas training and competitions with the full consent of the athletes.

"None of the coaching staff were motivated by personal greed," he added.

The sports ministry in Seoul has launched an investigation into the allegations.

AFP