Tuesday, September 7, 2010 | 5:28am :: Korea

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OPINION SPORTS

James Hewish, death threats, police protection

Notwithstanding any purported wrongdoings or conspiracies, death threats and bomb scares are surely no way of going about things

Hanopolis | 10:10am, Sun, Feb 28, 2010 | Comments (29)

Whether one believes James Hewish was wrong or right, it can't be a good thing when referees receive death threats and embassies become the target of bomb scares.

But for fans, the ego expands to embrace team and player. Add the Olympics and the ego transmogrifies to swallow family, tribe and nation and with it an almost primal drive to win - and conquer.

It's the ugly - and silly - underbelly of the Olympics, perhaps. The event by its nature feeds nationalistic excitement. Seen logically, sports, fans, and the Olympics are all so much silly drama. Back in reality, it's just work, school and the daily grind.

According to press reports, following Hewish's decision to disqualify the Korean speedskating team, which naturally raised the ire of the coach and dedicated fans, "a bomb threat was made by a disgruntled fan against the Australian embassy in Seoul."

Fortunately, that was later deemed a hoax, though the man who made the unfunny joke was arrested promptly by Seoul police.

Even worse, Hewish's life has become the target of death threats as well. Reports say that his house in Sydney has been placed under guard. And he's allegedly walking around with a security team like some kind of celebrity.

Though Hewish "is no stranger to controversy", said the Australian newspaper, the Australian team chief Ian Chesterman was "dismayed by the Korean reaction in Vancouver."

"Jim is an incredibly loyal, long-serving and respected official of the sport and it's terrible that sport has come to this," Chesterman said.

Of course, seen from the other side, dismay is being expressed that the sport has "come to this" by way of bad officiating. Or maybe it's always been a little like this; the rulings often seem quite subjective.

Reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, "South Korea erupted in anger but knew that referees' decisions cannot be overturned under competition rules but coach Choi Kwang-bok tried to protest."

"There was no body contact," Choi said. "I was angry with the referee . . . I argued with the referee at the end . . . but he ignored me and then he left. Today there was no crash between the bodies or body contact so I have no clue why we were disqualified."

Kim Min-Jung, the 24-year-old Korean skater who was disqualified, said "I don't know what the reason is. I don't have any clue what the referee was saying. It doesn't make any sense at all."

"I want a rematch. We all went and watched the race again and again last night and I still couldn't accept the result," Kim added after Thursday's official training.

"I don't think I made any mistakes in the race. It was not impeding or cross-tracking . . . I failed to give Korea five relay gold medals in a row. I'm sorry for that."

"I couldn't sleep last night," she said.

In Korea, "seething fans" called for a boycott of Australian products

Choi additionally noted that the "main referee was Australian James Hewish who disqualified South Korean star Kim Dong-Sung when he finished first against American star Apolo Anton Ohno in the 1,500m final at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games."

The Sydney newspaper said that the 2002 incident had become so heated it led S Korea to "threat to boycott" the Games closing ceremony and "soured relations" between the nations.

But it's not simply rabid Korean fans versus the world. Korea has its supporters as well - though most are indifferent and yawn.

Chris Chase at Yahoo Sports echoed Choi saying, "Yes, South Korea, Jim Hewish did it to you again . . . The offending bump was obvious, but it wasn't clear that it should lead to a disqualification."

Asked if there was a conspiracy against Korea, Choi's only reply was, "no comment."

Indeed, who knows, though Choi did allegedly warn his players to skate "carefully" under Hewish, said Yonhap.

But if there was a conspiracy to keep the Korean women's team from winning a gold for the first time since the 1994 Winter Olympics, issuing death threats is surely no way of going about flushing out conspirators (or upholding the good-will spirit of the Olympics).

And in the end, after the Games are over, it's just back to the daily grind for most of us.

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Comments (29)

Hania Brier from Canada | 7:26pm, Sun, Feb 28, 2010

This is terrible. They should penalize Korea and disqualify them form this sport in the 2014 game. They are DISGUSTING.

Hugo | 8:10pm, Sun, Feb 28, 2010

Overreacting, aren't you?

kev | 9:25pm, Sun, Feb 28, 2010

shut up you racist ****. keep ******* on james hewish's ****

LoveOlympics from USA | 11:44pm, Sun, Feb 28, 2010

Korea, please calm down. James Hewish's controversy must be seen from the perspective of the Olympic sports spirit. If Hewish truly made a decision as an Olympic sport referee based on his personnal preference, it is a violation of the Olympic spirits and an insult to all past, current and future Olympic athletes, which, if not stopped, will insidiously spread like a cancer cell and eventually destroy the foundation of the Olympic spirits and games. Thus, it is vitally important to the whole world community to find out the true nature of the Hewish's act during the 2010 winter Olympic games. How are we going to find it out? Maybe, we look into his past refereeing in the past international competitions and his past acts, behavior and comments in and outside the sports community. For example, according to the Wired Press, he allegedly stated to a reporter after the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games in connection with an equally controvercial disaqualification of a Korean skater that the US suffered a lot due to the 9/11 tragedy and deserved the Apolo Ono's gold medal. If this allegation is true, all Americans including me should be furious with Hewish for insulting our country and one of our star Olympic athletes. We live in an advanced computer age. Let's examine video recordings of all international competitions in which James Hewish has acted as a referee with the aid of advanced computers. If such close and objective examination truly reveals a pattern of preferential refereeing, then the whole world should condemn and banish him from any public sports event. A man is innocent before proven guilty. The world should accord James Hewish the benefit of doubt. But the world must also be diligent in ferreting out a cancer cell, if there is one, in our Olympic games as early as possible. We cannot afford to yawn and say: "Oh, well, the games are over. Let's get back to our daily life. Who cares if the Korean skaters got the bad end of the bargain? I do not like the Korean skaters anyway." Incidentally, I would like to say to Korea, Koreans and the Korean skaters affected by Hewish's refereeing, "please swallow your rage and be rational. Yes, you maybe justifiably be angry. Oh, yes, the affected skaters may feel the past ten or more years of hard training and sacrifice of personal life wasted. But though it may sound empty, stupid and indifferent to your anger, you need to overcome your emotion and work with the world to extirpate the cancer cell, if there is one, of the Olympic sports. Do not underestimate a cancer cell of the OLympic sports! Like a cancer cell in a body, it probably is very intelligent, evasive, hiding in constantly shifting and changing mutative forms and sucking its nutrition from unsuspecting legitimate organizations. Inasmuch as the stake at risk is the foundation core of the Olympic games and spirits, you have be persistent in your pursuit and have to bear the burden of being irritable to the populace of the world who do not feel the effect of a cancer cell growing within us.

Max | 11:57pm, Sun, Feb 28, 2010

LoveOlympics,
good, reasonable, intelligent comments. We should all keep our heads while doing proper investigations in proper way.

James Hewish | 3:17am, Mon, Mar 1, 2010

1) 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic - Disqualified Kim Dong Sung (Lead Ohno to Gold)
2) 2006 World Cup Short Track – Disqualified Ahn Hyun Soo (#1 ranked short track skater)
3) 2007 World Cup Short Track – Disqualified Song Kyung Taek
4) 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic – Disqualified Sung Si Baek
5) 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic – Disqualified Women 3000m Relay

Now tell me this was not intentional. He will face consequences one day.

H.C from USA | 4:11am, Mon, Mar 1, 2010

hello
When I heard about this incident in the Olympics,
I felt angry. Because, I'm also Korean.
Now, I think James Hewish is unfair to Koreans.
Perhaps, he dislike Koreans.
And also, he disqualified many Korean people.
But I'm not suggesting angerness to James Hewish.
In my opinion, to James Hewish, make fair decisions.
That is all.

Jacob from Fort McMurray | 9:22am, Mon, Mar 1, 2010

Oh, shut the mother &%^$ up Hania Brier

CCC | 5:51pm, Mon, Mar 1, 2010

Korean netizens know all personal information about james hewish including his exact home address and locations.
He better watch out around his home.

LoveOlympics | 1:03am, Tue, Mar 2, 2010

May I suggest that all expletives or expressions of personal feelings against James Hewish be stopped! If you are going to accuse Hewish, you need concrete proof. Judging from Hewish's 2002 controversy and alleged subsequent 2-yr suspension from refereeing, he certainly seems like a controversy-prone person. Check what other controversies he has been involved. Check to see if Hewish has had any past Australian criminal record that could disqualify him as an Olympic referee. Check what social organizations he belongs to in Australia. Not long ago, some Australians spit on the face of some immigrants in broad daylight in public. Is he such an Australian? Talk to his friends and enemies to figure out what kind of person he truly is. Don't throw empty verbal accusations out of vengeance. By the way. please please do NOT say anything negative about Australia and Australians in general! I can personally attest based on my travel experiences that the country and its people are a magnificient place and people. As Korea must have some bad people, Australia may have its share of ugly citizens.

Bill | 7:50am, Tue, Mar 2, 2010

It's incredible how many people -who have absolutely no understanding of short track regulations- dare to make judgements on a short track referee's call.
In case of an incident the fault is normally with the skater who overtakes another skater. As in this case there has not been any clean passing by the koreans, this leads to a disqualification. It's as simple as that - therefore the disqualification was correct. The referee has only done the job he would do at any other event. This has absolutely nothing to do with being biased.
Furthermore the a.m. picture order is incorrect. The third picture was taken before no. 1 and 2.
Therefore I can only recommend anybody who speaks up to do his homework before telling a lot of rubbish throughout the world.

EBS from ??? | 7:51am, Tue, Mar 2, 2010

Wait, so you are saying that you think Korean people are bad, and
James Hewish is fair????
As a judge, or referee, he should be fair to everyone!
James Hewish made Apolo Ohno to have golden medal!

Kelsey from Canada | 11:35am, Tue, Mar 2, 2010

I don't know. But do you think the ref. could have something against Korea? I'm not Korean or Chinese, but I thought the DQ was unfair and ludicrous. I just looked up the ref. name to see if I could dig up some dirt on him and got here, because I'm still kind of shocked by the ref.'s attitude towards the Korean coach. It was like he didn't even care. He should have taken the time to show him the video and explain why he thought it was a DQ. Or may be he thought he was too important to do that? Idk.

LoveOlympics from USA | 2:24pm, Tue, Mar 2, 2010

Bill, shouldn't you establish your credential as an expert of short skating rules before you call others' opinions rubbish. I watched the disputed event on NBC and clearly heard the NBC commentator say after repeated replays that the Chinese skater's skate touched the Korean skater's skate - the Korean skater was ahead of the Chinese skater. Two days later, the same commentator mentioned during another short skating event that Mr. Hewish should not have disqualified the Korean ladies' team. As I understand, the NBC commentator used to be a world-class short skate athlete. Since your interpretation of the disputed race conflicts with that of the NBC commentator, your comments may also be considered as biased rubbish unless you show your authority as an expert of short skating. I hope ISU thoroughly investigate this incident with unbiased objective mind and clear any cloud over this incident. The goal should and must be not to taint the Olympic image and spirit.

vancouver 2010 from usa | 10:55pm, Tue, Mar 2, 2010

i am just curious how james hewish became the chief referee in short track olympics if he was suspended from refereeing for two years beforehand. How is this even possible?

LoveOlympics from USA | 2:01am, Wed, Mar 3, 2010

Kelsey, if you want to find out more about Mr. Hewish, you may check the archives of the Australian newspapers, beginning with the papers in Sydney. You could also check the media archives of the liabraries of Australian universities if you or any of your friends have access to them.

Bill | 3:13am, Wed, Mar 3, 2010

to EBS: I'm not saying that Korean people are bad. I'm just saying that based on the current regulations of this sport the referee has made a fair call. If he would not have disqualified the Korean team he would have definitely disadvantaged the Chinese team as they were pushed back far into second position by the blade kick of the overtaking Korean team. I am neither Chinese nor Korean and therefore I might be looking at the case from a more objective point of view.
to Kelsey: According to the regulations only the chief referee may look at the official video replay and therefore he may not even look at it together with the coach. The referee did explain his decision to the coach but it is natural that the coach would not accept any explanation when the decision is so important. This happens very often in this sport.
to LoveOlympics and vancouver 2010: I am a former short track official and the referee from Australia has never been suspended by the ISU. I have no idea who has brought up such a rumor.
Regarding the a.m. picture order: Picture three actually shows the Korean team cheering directly after the race assuming that they'd have won a gold medal while it shows the Chinease teamleaders claiming the incident. Therefore this picture has been taken before the referee actually explained his final decision to the coach.

vancouver 2010 from usa | 4:12am, Wed, Mar 3, 2010

Bill, do you have a list of skaters that james hewish disqualified so far-- in the olympics and in world championship games?
If he disqualified just as many skaters from other countries, then I'll believe he was fair. I am just skeptical b/c Hewish said that 'America deserved a medal after going through so much b/c of 9/11' after disqualifying Kim in 2002.
That statement alone brings a lot of questions.
Anyway, I guess disqualifying korea made all three big countries happy.

LoveOlympics from USA | 6:57am, Wed, Mar 3, 2010

Bill, you stated that you were a former short track (skating) official. I trust that you know what you are talking about. But your statement, "As in this case there has not been any clean passing by the koreans, this leads to a disqualification. It's as simple as that - therefore the disqualification was correct.", seems quite different from that of the NBC commentator and what I witnessed on TV. Did you watch the race as broadcast on NBC? Are you not opining based on the Chinese skater's (the one whose skate touched the Korean skater's skate) statement? NBC replayed the two skaters' scene many times. What I saw was that at the time of the alleged clicking of the two skaters' skates, (1) the Korean skater was in front of the Chinese skater and (2) the Chinese's skater's right skate was moving toward and eventually contacting the Korean skater's left skate while both were turning to the left. I cannot deny what I saw. The NBC commentator seemed to confirm what I saw. That' why I do not understand your statement "...passing by the Koreans...".
I do not side with either Korean or Chinese teams. I just want the Olympic games to be fair. I hope you feel the same.

Bill | 7:14am, Wed, Mar 3, 2010

Vancouver 2010, I don't have such a list but I'm pretty sure that also the past competitions would be quite similar to the distribution of the disqualifications, which occurred at the current olympic games at Vancouver. The referee of the ladies' event has disqualified skaters from the following nations:
500m: 1 Bulgaria, 1 Korea, 1 Great Britain
1000m: 1 USA, 2 Netherlands, 1 Hungary, 1 Canada, 1 China
1500m: 1 Poland, 1 Japan, 1 Germany, 1 Hungary, 1 China, 1 Czech Republic
Looking at these numbers I am not able to find any biased behaviour.

BJ from canada | 10:27am, Wed, Mar 3, 2010

@Bill: please don't say that "I'm pretty sure". Look it up yourself and if you look at all of Hewish's calls from the past, he tends to call Korea off a lot more than other countries. and I think what makes Koreans mad is that the skaters seems to go with world record or rank #1 or previous champions, and lose EVERY TIME there's Hewish, and win at other events right afterwards or when he's not refereeing, which I find to be a little sketch. On the top, there's a list of Korean skaters DQ'd by Hewish at important international events by James Hewish (I find that to be quite funny XD). Don't tell me that they just gave into pressures at those events, because they're pretty darn good at other equally pressuring international events and manage the top ranks. Also, the other DQ'd skaters mostly consisted of obviuos faults such as wrong lane switch, rather than "impeding" or "not-clear-impeding-like-Ohno"

BJ from canada | 10:32am, Wed, Mar 3, 2010

@Bill: also, it's not even fair since the officials ruled impeding on the basis that Kim and Sun came in contact as they got ready to enter a corner. However, the assistant who was observing that particular corner was a Chinese official. I get that people are professional, and I do not try to question that, but how can anyone not have a piece of doubt, when it comes to such an important and competitive game like this, if the referee already has an unpleasant encounter with the Korean skaters and the other assistant is from the country whose team was competiting against Korea for that gold?

anonymous | 2:39pm, Wed, Mar 3, 2010

All of the racists out there listen to this: if this were your country in this situation twice you would be angry and you know what Hanier Brier, you can shut your mouth cause you have no right to say that. YOU are DISGUSTING in all aspects. Watch the replays over and over, there is no penalty what so ever...

MaSir Jones | 5:29am, Thu, Mar 4, 2010

Bottom line is, don't f2ck with Koreans for the wrong reason unless you want a million against one. And James Hewish f2cked with the wrong team for the wrong reason. You reap what you sow James.

Bill | 6:00am, Thu, Mar 4, 2010

@BJ-21 : It is not correct that the Australian referee is disqualifying more Koreans than skaters from other nations. The list shown under Point 6 doesn't mean anything as neither other DQs of the same referee in the same events nor other DQs made by other referees in other events are shown.
As in Championships and most of the former World Cups (this changed a bit due to the repechage system during last year's season) only the best skaters continue to the next rounds. The best skaters skate more races and therefore have a higher chance of being disqualified. This counts for all the big short track nations like Korea, China, Canada and the US. The European countries usually only have a few single good skaters while the beforementioned big nations usually end up with two or three skaters at least in the semi-final of a distance. As the races become a lot tighter and tougher during the final rounds there are usually more disqualifications. As at this point only the best skaters in the world are left, they are DQed more often than others.
For instance at Vancouver the referees team disqualified both Zhou Yang (A Final 1000m) and Wang Meng (Semi Final 1500m) in the individual distances so that I really don't believe that this team was taking decisions in favour of the Chinese team.
Looking at several competitions I have seen in the past I believe that Hewish is an excellent referee, he is not taking decisions in favour of any nation. The list of competitions, which he has refereed, is long and he wouldn't be the chief referee of so many important competitions if he woudn't be generally a fair referee. Of course one does mistakes once in a while - we are all humans. But as mentioned several times before: My opinion is that the vancouver relay call was correct as the Chinese team was disadvantaged by the Korean move.

LoveOlympics from USA | 12:22pm, Thu, Mar 4, 2010

Bill, watch the video replay of the disputed race. The Korean skater was not passing. She had already passed the Chinese skater and the Chinese skater was trying to catch up with the Korean skater, causing the clicking of the two skaters' skates in the process. It's puzzling that you are intent on distorting the facts and making conclusionary statements which appear to copy what the Chinese skater stated sometime after the race. By the way, according to the NBC commentator, Mr. Hewish initially gave one reason for the disqualification from the gold medal and later changed to another reason for the disqualification. Does that mean that he was not sure about the disqualification at time of his decision, but anyway went ahead with the disqualification? Was he predisposed to disqualify the Korean team - in the 2002 Olympic Games, he disqualified another Korean skater from the gold medal based on an equally controversial ground? There is something here that does not feel right to an American sense of justice. Do you as "a former short track (skating) official" feel obligated to support Mr. Hewish's decision no matter what? I hope not. Fair play must be an inseparable part of the Olympic games and spirit. Incidentally, who provided you with the specific data about disqualifications of the past international short track skating competitions mentioned in your comments?

RENK | 12:46am, Thu, Mar 11, 2010

@Bill
I'm from a skating background and that prick made the wrong call. You're claim that the koreans didn't make a clean pass is ridiculous, and it wasn't even that for which the call was made. the isu clearly states that blocking is the act of preventing one from making a pass on the outside. the chinese clearly tried to make a pass on the inside track, on which the korean was already in, i.e. she tried to make a pass on a lane that wasn't available for her, and subsequently made contact with the korean, so if anything, the impedement was by the chinese not the korean.

i don't really give a sh2t about whether jewish has anything against korea, well i do, because he's done it one too many times, but i don't really believe that he's out to get korea specifically, but it's an insult to the sport, and the spirit of the games, and he really is an embarassment to the ISU, australia, and mankind in general.

If you think he's a good judge, then thank f2ck you're not on the ISU board as well.

JL | 1:22pm, Sun, Mar 14, 2010

Ok, Hana Brier, you need to shut the f2ck up! Calling a country disgusting! WTH is that about, you racist pig! People like you is why racism and war still exists.

And regarding Jim Hewish, he needs to srsly get the f2ck away from the Olympics. Short track is all about the skates clicking and what not, even Ohno said that it's unpredictable. You're crammed into a spot, obviously there's going to be clicking. Just because you touched someone's skate doesn't make them fall back 500 meters. And srsly, Hewish, if you're going to be a fair referee, go talk with the coach and discuss it with them rather than making him brew in anger

doug from usa | 4:39pm, Tue, Mar 30, 2010

It is quite not strange to hear this kind of news. This guy, james hewish, has been known to be a faul player repeatly toward koreans since 2006. His multiple malignant intention harmed korean players should be investigated, if he in his early age has ever been sexualy abused by koreans or if he has ever smashed by koreans, or if he is a psychopathic, or he is simply a dummy racist. whatever he is he is an animal out of mind fouking ashhhhol by himself invited death threat. He was disqualified not koreans. As his name is HeWish, i hope He should Wish to be a good nice man in holy ground of athletics, not He Wish to die worthlessly. Perfect Idiot James Hewish!!