The national Olympic body has scheduled an emergency meeting for Friday to discuss the status of banned swimmer Park Tae-hwan.The Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) said Thursday the agenda at its board of directors meeting will include Park's eligibility for this year's Rio de Janeiro Summer Games. A KOC rule bars athletes from competing for the country for three years after the end of a doping suspension. And Park, whose international doping ban ended in March this year, was kept off the provision

President Park Geun-hye visited the national training center for Olympic athletes Wednesday to offer her encouragement as the one-month countdown to the start of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games has begun.Park met with athletes, coaches and top sports officials at the National Training Center in northern Seoul, and asked them to ensure that the athletes can compete at their best during the Olympics that will run from Aug. 5-21 in Brazil.The president also instructed her government officials

A Korean baseball club owner has been placed under a travel ban in an ongoing fraud investigation.The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said Wednesday that Lee Jang-seok, who owns the Korea Baseball Organization club Nexen Heroes, was barred from leaving the country on June 20.Lee is facing fraud charges, after another business executive claimed that he didn't get his stake of the ball club that Lee had promised him.Hong Sung-eun, chairman of the Atlanta-based real estate developer Rain

The Korean men's Olympic football team on Wednesday made a financial donation to their ailing former coach, the national football governing body said. The Korea Football Association said the men's team, which will make their eighth consecutive Olympic appearance in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, donated 30 million won ($25,700) to Lee Kwang-jong, who is undergoing treatment for an acute form of leukemia.Lee, who had been coaching South Korean youth teams in different age groups since 2000, was appointe