A former assistant coach of the national women’s curling team, fired for verbally abusing his athletes, was slapped with a lifetime ban from the sport on Thursday.

The Korea Curling Federation announced that Choi Min-suk will be banned for life from curling, after officials determined last month that he had verbally abused the national curlers during a competition in December 2012 in Italy.

The head coach, Chung Young-sup, did not engage in the abusive behavior, according to officials, but received a five-year suspension Thursday for failing to return unused amounts of training grants for the curling team.

Late last month, five curlers ― Kim Ji-sun, Gim Un-chi, Shin Mi-sung, Um Min-ji and Lee Seul-bee ― threatened to leave their semi-pro club run by the Gyeonggi Provincial Government in protest of the abusive practices of Chung and Choi. (Yonhap)