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 As to Jeff Simon

While Simon and I were having dinner after the ISU hearing in Germany, Simon asked to me to stop fighting. I asked why. He said "even though Jeff made me into trouble by lying, I am sympathetic to Jeff because he has been abused by Jae Su many times and lost her mother recently. Also he is talented but had much bad luck in the past. So personally I wish he can make for the next Olympics”.

I told Simon “I understand but I can’t keep quiet covering everything. I wish Jeff to be an Olympian, too, and hope to see he gets on his knee and say sorry to you someday.”

We do not believe Jeff Simon revealed the secret. He told a lie just because he was scared to be punished. And how Levi knew it? As we see the happenings at the competition, because Jae Su talked and did many crazy things, everyone already was aware that he did something with Olivier’s skate. I don’t know if it is Levi himself alone or who other skaters were involved in the conspiracy to grab the evidence from Simon, but anyway skaters who were at the competition might have been suspicious that Jae Su directed Simon Cho.

And Levi voluntarily stood in front because he was a closest friend of Simon. This is what we believe. When Levi gave a trick question to Simon, all of a sudden, Simon had to confess, thinking Jeff revealed the secret to other skaters. He was in France and didn’t know what was going on exactly here. Levi cut off Simon’s earnest pleading heartlessly to cut off Jae Su. It is absolutely not that Simon voluntarily confessed to Levi, as we can see their conversation.


How Simon Cho has been treated by USS in his skating life?

I am not going to tell happenings at the competitions or during racing because it is too many.   Instead, let me make three other examples. 
      
     1.   At the end of April in 2012, Lockheed Martin invited 4 skaters to the USA Science & Engineering 
           Festival in Washington DC. Washington DC is Simon’s home town.   He was a World Champion 
           ranked number 1 in the world in the 500m and ranked number 1 in USS.   However, USS selected 
           Travis Jayner, who was a board member of USS representing athletes, and his girlfriend, Alyson 
           Dudek, to go to the festival.  Two staff members strongly argued that Simon should be selected to go 
           to the festival because his hometown is Washington DC and his achievement was outstanding than 
           any other skaters.  But, USS ignored this and still selected Travis and Alyson to go.

              

           Soon after this, the two staff members who argued that he should go to the festival got fired, along 

           with other reasons.

2.      When Simon was 13 years old, Coach Jimmy Jang was in Marquette, Michigan at the USOC training center.  Jimmy wanted Simon to train there and so Simon applied, but he was rejected because of the reason that he was too young to stay far away from home.  However, one female skater, Mary Grace who was the same age as him was accepted into the training center. I asked why she got accepted and he wasn’t, they gave me a ridiculous answer.  The answer was that it was because she has a sister, Sadie Grace, who is three years older than her but still minor, was training there, so she would be able to take care of her.

             It is a fundamental principle that in any organization you have to follow the rules and

             regulations. But, Simon has seen people alter the rules and regulations many times

             depending on the situation or who the rules and regulations are being applied to. This is

             exactly what invisible discrimination is.  

3.      In 2009, before the Olympics, Simon was 9 ^th on the order of eligibility to be invited for the National Racing team.  There were 8 spots open for both the male and female skaters. Because one skater (Charles Ryan Leville) ahead of him declined to join, it made him eligible.  But, Simon was rejected by High Performance of USS.  The reason was because once, Simon took a survey regarding the product of Nike, which was a sponsor of USS, and truthfully wrote what he thought about the quality of their products and criticized them being the young athlete that he was.  This was the reason what I heard they did not accept him.   It was probably just an excuse to reject him and there must have been more malicious reason.   So, only 7 out of the 8 spots for the male skaters were filled in the National Racing Program.  He had no way but to train individually to win a spot on the Olympic team.   

      The good news was that he made it anyway.   However, in critical matter, the rules and regulations are just meaningless paper for a discriminated person.

What happened with Simon Cho's Attorney and USS Hearing?      

Right after the USS final report in January, USS sent the notice that they would have a hearing in March.

And the noticeable thing was the hearing would be processed only with Simon Cho, without any witnesses or relevant person.    It meant this hearing was just to decide the amount of disciplinary action against Simon based on the final report.

A week later, ISU noticed to Simon and Jae Su that they would have their hearing soon because ISU had some doubt of the USS final report.    Therefore we requested to USS to postpone the USS hearing, because we thought ISU hearing would be done much more fairly and reasonably way than USS hearing.   And we had been waiting for the day of ISU hearing.

In April, we were informed that ISU would hold the hearing in Frankfurt, Germany.     It was ridiculous, so I requested to change the location.   However, they refused it.

Priority to it, we had a meeting with Simon’s attorney to discuss what to do with the hearing.

Attorney said he had talked to John Ruger, chair of USOC Ombudsman and Mike Plant, new president of US speedskating.    And I was very embarrassed by attorney’s saying.   He said, “Mike told USS would take care of Simon well after the Sochi Olympics, he asked to forget the hearing.   Otherwise, we may have worse result.” and he suggested to us to abandon the USS hearing.

“How they take care of Simon well after the Sochi Olympics?”   “What could be worse than now?   Do we still have anything to lose?”

He couldn’t answer on my questions but just said “If you do want to have a hearing, I can’t help you any longer.   Will you process the hearing by yourselves?”     I said I would do by myself.   It was the last talking to him.

After then, I requested to Mike Plant to hold the USS hearing but he refused it giving two reasons.

1.       ISU will hold the hearing.

     2.       USS hearing is not beneficial to USS.

I knew he is no different from previous USS staffs and board members.

I requested to ISU to change the location, or have the hearing by video conference with relevant witnesses, or postpone the hearing after the USS hearing.    However, ISU Disciplinary Committee chairman noticed as below, rejecting all my requests;

1.    The location of the hearing, Frankfurt, will not be changed. Former hearings took place at Lausanne, the domicile of the ISU, but the transport connection to Frankfurt is better for international flights. We have not chosen Salt Lake City for neutrality reason and because other participants are coming from Switzerland, Austria, Germany and New Zealand and not only from the U.S.

2.    The date and duration of the hearing will not be changed. The hearing will not be postponed after the USS hearing because the items of both hearings are different.

3.    The hearing is non public (see Article 7 of the ISU Rules of Procedure). Accordingly only the parties, attorneys  and witnesses invited may attend the hearing. There is no admittance for media, reporters, people from White & Case and other non invited persons.

4.    For the minutes the hearing will be recorded on an audio recorder.

5.    If a party is represented by legal counsel all notifications, communications and documents shall be sent to such counsel only (see Article 6 No. 2 of the ISU Rules of Procedure). We will not answer letters or requests from other persons.

6.    Finally we refer to Article 11 No. 1 of the ISU Rules of Procedure: The exchange of writs shall consist of a Statement of Complaint and one Statement of Reply. Exchange of writs does not mean discussion about the time, duration and location of the hearing.

In addition to that, the hearing was on subject that it would not be allowed to talk the matter that is out of competition.

Those were the reasons that I boycotted the hearing and I sent the boycott letter to ISU. (Click here to see the boycott letter)

Jeff Simon was reluctant to attend the hearing, but after I announced the boycott he was willing to attend.    That is why I changed the decision of boycott.

Considering all the things above, I have no way but to think this incident was very politically settled by authorized organizations and persons.


The letter from a mother of Korean skater.

      Some still may be confused with Jae Su.   If we don't spend a lot of time with Jae Su, we can't believe that he is such bad.   His attitude, style of talking looks gentle and nice first time.   And we can't hardly notice how different he is.    I was same.   I did not noticed who Jae Su really are until I was insulted by him when Simon had a conflict with him for the matter of Long Track.   It needs a lot of time until we realize it.

      If you still do not believe what I am saying, read this letter.     This is the letter written by a mother of Korean skater, Hye-Jung Shin (English name: Star Shin), what she had experienced with Jae Su.    Star was scouted by Russian team but gave up going to Russia by Jae Su because Jae Su persuade her to come to USA when he was hired by USS.   And she had stayed in Salt Lake City for a couple of years with Jae Su.    The letter describes what/how Star was suffered by Jae Su and his wife.

      Letter from a mother of Star Shin