• Kim Bo-reum and Park Ji-woo blamed Noh Seon-yeong for defeat • Petition signed by 50,000 Koreans demands their ban

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Two South Korean speed skaters are facing calls for them to be banned from the national team after they appeared to blame a team-mate for their failure to reach the women’s team pursuit semi-finals at the Winter Olympics.

Kim Bo-reum and Park Ji-woo crossed the line almost four seconds ahead of the third Korean skater, Noh Seon-yeong, in the quarter-finals on Monday.

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In the pursuit, the clock stops when the final skater has crossed the line and teams typically finish with all three skaters bunched together.

Television clips showed Noh in tears on the bench after the race while Kim and Park appeared to ignore her and walked away with only their Dutch coach, Bob de Jong, offering Noh comfort.

Noh had been hoping to win gold to honour her late brother, the former short track world champion Jin-kyu, who died of bone cancer in 2016.

“Team pursuit results are decided when the last skater reaches the finish line, and that’s the part where we didn’t do well,” Kim said.

Park added that she “didn’t know Noh was left behind because it was too loud”.

As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 500,000 people had signed a petition calling for Kim and Park to be ousted from the national team. If a demand receives more than 200,000 signatures within 30 days, the Korean president’s office must address the matter. It has yet to give an answer.

Public anger has yet to subside despite Kim apologising for her remarks on Tuesday. The matter is the latest setback for the Korea Skating Union, which has been plagued by allegations of favouritism and physical abuse over the years.

It also came under fire before the Olympics after Noh almost lost her spot due to an “administrative error”.The KSU later apologised for the error.