Four male South Korean cross-country skiers have been suspended from the national team after they were caught drinking during the Asian Winter Games, the sport's national governing body said Thursday.

The Korea Ski Association said the cross-country skiers who drank beer during the Asian Winter Games in Sapporo, Japan, received six-month suspensions and were immediately dropped from the national team. Among the cross-country skiers who represented South Korea at the Asian Games in February, only Kim Magnus and Cho Yong-jin were allowed to stay with the national team as neither were involved in the drinking incident.
 

"The skiers said they drank only two cans of beer, but we decided to mete out a punishment in order to prevent such an incident from happening again at international competitions and set the team discipline straight," an official from the KSA said.

The South Korean men's cross-country skiing team collected one gold, one silver and one bronze medal in Sapporo, its best result yet at the Asian Winter Games.

The KSA, however, said it decided not to renew its contracts with three coaches -- Micheal Devyatyarov, Lee Jun-gil and Pak Byung-joo -- following the drinking scandal, and will bring in new coaching staff in the near future to prepare for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Yonhap)