Background
Simon Cho was born in Seoul, South of Korea and moved to the United States as an illegal immigrant with his parents at the age of four and settled in Chicago.
Simon Cho was born in Seoul, South of Korea and moved to the United States as an illegal immigrant with his parents at the age of four and settled in Chicago.
He remained an illegal immigrant until he reached the age of 11. Growing up, Cho recounted that life was financially difficult as an illegal immigrant, stating, "My parents left for work before I woke up and came back home after I went to sleep. We had financial difficulties and there were times when we had no water or electricity for a few days because we weren"t able to pay the bills.
Cho began skating at the age of 3.
He trained in Salt Lake City but moved back to Upper Marlboro, Maryland a year before the United States. Olympic Trials, initially quit speed skating after failing to qualify for performance grants from the United States. Olympic Committee and United States. Speedskating which would have offset the unaffordable costs of $40,000 for training. About his chances of making the Olympic team, Cho said, "When I say nobody thought I would make the team, literally nobody thought I would make lieutenant.Not even me".
However, at the age of 18, Cho qualified for the 2010 United States. Olympic team Apolo Ohno noted that Cho "basically made this team training on his own".
Cho cites Ohno and Shani Davis as mentors who helped him face challenges as being a person of color in the sport.
At the Vancouver Olympics, he competed in the 500 meter and 5000 meter relay events. Cho earned a bronze medal in the relay after skating in the semifinals. Cho claimed that he acted on an order from his coach Jae-Su Chun.
The suspension ran through October 4, 2014, which means Cho missed the chance to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.