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A Cuban taekwondo athlete and his coach were banned for life after Angel Matos kicked the referee in the face following his bronze-medal match disqualification.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/ ... id=3549903

what a dumb ass.

That Cuban should have kicked the judges' asses too. They f**king SUCK! Seriously they need to fix this sport.

Matos' tantrum followed a day of confusion on the mats.

Earlier Saturday, China's double gold medalist Chen Zhong crashed out in the quarterfinals after initially being declared the winner.

It was the first time a match result had been overturned since taekwondo became an official Olympic sport in 1990.

What's up with that??

well, everybody in this olympics has had bad ruling by the refs and none responded in this way, they made the right choice of banning him for life.

when i saw the replay it reminded my of the Zohan, his foot came out of nowhere

Anyone have a video of this? Been looking around but can't find any yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DtzeycIYf4

i understand the other guy won and he's happy, but i wish he didnt keep celebrating like that.
and thats just a stupid rule

BlackMamba wrote:well, everybody in this olympics has had bad ruling by the refs and none responded in this way, they made the right choice of banning him for life.

It was bound to happen.... the refing in many sports has be downright horriable.

The Cuban must be banned, of course

But the ref should be banned too, at least for some months!

I don't understand a lot about Taekwondo but from what I've heard he made a huge mistake, he should have advertised the Cuban the time was ending, and he didn't and gave to the another fighter, the win and the bronze medal.

The judges and scorekeepers should be kicked too. What lousy handling all around for this event this year.

I have a little sympathy for the face kicker, and not just because that picture looks hilarious. His coach said he was approached by the Kazakhastani's prior to the match and offered money to throw the fight. Then he is winning but gets disqualified in a pretty unusual circumstance? I can imagine he'd be pretty pissed and think he was being robbed by corrupt officials. Obviously kicking a ref in the face was a poor decision, but Taekwando needs a major overhaul of it's officials and judges based on what I've seen this olympics.

yes, something has to be done about the refs, i hate it when the athletes (of any sport) are the ones receiving the punishments and the refs walk away like nothing happen.

i don't support the matos' kick because more people could give it a shot as a desperate move.

At least IOC disciplines grossly incompetent judges (gymnatic judges from Athen for example). NBA almost never does it.

The life ban on the kicker is justified. what was he thinking?

What did that judge do wrong though? He only went with the 1-min rule. I am not sure what there is to criticize about the officiating, and yet so many people are ranting about incompetent judges. What is going on?

Does anyone have a video of this? The youtube one is down of course.

GQStylin wrote:Does anyone have a video of this? The youtube one is down of course.

go to NBC.

what a lame sport. he had a clear kick at the guy's head, undefended, and it barely made the guy flinch.

You know it is bad when both US and Cuban fighters complain about the refing....

5DOM wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DtzeycIYf4

i understand the other guy won and he's happy, but i wish he didnt keep celebrating like that.
and thats just a stupid rule

yeah, the ref gets kicked, then a judge gets pushed, and the cuban guy looks ready to fight, and the competitor is dancing around "Whoo! Whoo!"