Great Britain speed skater Elise Christie has revealed that South Korea's Park Seung-Hi didn't blame her for the crash in the final of the 500m in the Winter Olympics.
Christie and Seung-Hi collided during the race along with Italy's Arianna Fontana, and as a result - despite crossing the finish line in second - the British athlete was stripped of her silver medal.
Along with the demotion, Christie received a torrent of abuse on social media from South Korean fans blaming her for the incident, which prevented Seung-Hi from finishing with more than the bronze.
Christie told The Guardian: "To start with there were a couple of thousand messages of just negative stuff from Korea. In the end I think when the Koreans saw what was happening a lot of them did come on and say our country's not like this.
"I speak to the South Korean team a lot and me and the girl that was involved in the crash – we get along really well. She came up and hugged me and she went to the media and said she didn't blame me."
The 23-year-old was later disqualified from the 1,500m as well, but came back strongly to reach the quarter-finals of the 1,000m.
Simon Sinclair
