[LETTERS TO THE EDITOR]Slandering a competitor

I want to congratulate Park Young-seok and his team for reaching the South Pole in world-record time, but I won’t. Why not? Because although sore losers are bad, sore winners are even worse. In the article on your Web site, the Korean team says Fiona Thornehill “took a plane for the first 30 kilometers of her journey to the South Pole from Hercules Inlet.”

Why would the Korean team say such a thing? There is nothing on Thornewill’s web site (http://www.polarchallenge.org/) that corroborates Park’s claim. In an e-mail, Roger Allton, Thornewill’s operations manager, said, “We totally refute this claim.” Furthermore, ExplorersWeb.com and AdventureStats have studied Fiona Thornewill’s “Argos positions and found no evidence of an air-lift.”

It is unfortunate that despite its record, the team felt the need to make a statement that is false. It is sadder, I think, that, in his moment of triumph Mr. Park felt a need to belittle the accomplishments of another adventurer. Park said he hoped the success of his team “acts as a sign of hope for other Korean people facing frustration.” Isn’t their success enough cause for Koreans’ hope? Why do they need to act like petulant children?

by Ivon Katz