Angel Matos' Disqualification: The Taekwondo Controversy at the 2008 Olympics

On August twenty third, twenty eighteen, at the Beijing Olympics, Cuba's Angel Mantos does something many of us have always wanted to do when there was a bad call in one of our sporting events. He kicked the official and subsequently ended his taekwondo career at that moment. And today we're going to dive into Angel and what all happened in this crazy moment at the Beijing Olympics today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. And today's trivia question is after what war was taekwondo originally started? Now, before we dive into Angel, let's first talk about taekwondo, what exactly is it? I know we've heard it and we think maybe martial arts, and we've heard it in a lot of different things. Well, it all started in nineteen forty five, towards the end of the World War Two, when a new martial arts school called Kwan started to open up in Seoul, South Korea. And this was a mixture of Japanese and Chinese martial arts. Now there's a traditional and a revolution taekwondo. In nineteen fifty two, during a demonstration for the President of South Korea, the South Korean Army did a martial arts demonstration and this was misrecognized as a kun demonstration, which was a which is a Korean martial arts form, and so they eventually would unify all these different art forms of martial arts forms, which later became known as tai kwan do. So really it is a form of martial arts, and honestly, to a person that's not involved, you probably couldn't tell taekwondo difference between karate or any other kind of martial arts forms. Unless you grew up or have studied this, you probably couldn't the difference. And in nineteen sixty six the International Taekwondo Federation was formed in Seoul, South Korea, and in two thousand it was officially adopted into the Olympics along with judo and karate, two other martial arts forms. Now not a lot is known here about Angel Mantos. There's not online about him, and this may be because he grew up in Cuba. He was born in Cuba in nineteen seventy six and began in taekwondo at the age of seventeen as he was drawn into fighting sports and at the nineteen ninety nine Winnipeg PanAm Games he was able to get a silver medal at the eighty gram weight level and he was one of the favorites heading into the two thousand Olympics for the first taekwon Do Olympic competition and he only lost three points on his way to winning a gold medal in the men's middleweight class, and at the two thousand and seven Pan Am Games he would again win gold. But in two thousand five four at the Olympics, he was defeated four to one by future gold medalist American Steven Lopez and will lose again to Mexican fighter Estrada in the round of sixteen, not winning any medal. But he was fighting his way back in the two thousand and eight. In the two thousand and eight Beijing Games, as he had worked his way all the way up to the bronze medal match with his chance to win another medal where he is facing off against Hmed Timenov, when he got a foot injury when he was leading three to two. Now he took a kayashi, which is a term for a medical timeouts, but under taekwondoll rules, you only had one minute to take a kashi, and at the end of that one minute you must return to the center of the ring to resume the fight or forfeit the match. And while he was down, the referee, to a Rick Celbat, gave him a warning at forty seconds, but after a minute had passed Angelo had not returned back to the center ring and the effort, the referee ruled that he had taken the time had expired and he would forfeit the match now too the fighter and the ref it did seem like Angel had broken a toe or something on his foot, as when they do these fights you fight barefoot and armand was declared the winner. But Angel immediately popped up and started to argue with the referee, and this quickly escalated as within a flash, Angel used his taekwondo skills and kicked the referee in the face, along with punching him in the arm and spat at him as he was pulled off by his coach in security. I'll put a link in the of the video of this down below, and you may have to watch it a few times because it happened so fast, and it's one of these things that we've all kind of been there. We've been frustrated a ref or umpire or something like that, we would just want to hit him or something. And in fighting sports, this is something that's got to be very difficult. You're in the mode of fighting and you have skills, especially in taekwondo or boxing, that you could use to take out the ref if you wanted to. But if you do that, there are consequences, and that's exactly what happened. As he lost the match, he was not awarded any medal, and within hours, both Angel and his coach were banned for life from the World Taekwondo Federation, ending his career forever, and they removed all his results from the two thousand and eight Olympics. But despite all this, even Cuba's President Fidel Castro defended Angel, saying they stole the fight from them, just as they have stolen fights from two Cuban boxers that year. Once you're banned from the sport that you loved, that he had been doing since he was seventeen, and this was his third Olympics. To this day, he still regrets his actions in the heat of the moment, he got angry and did something he should have never done. He believes the decision was unfair and cost him the fight, but he should have never reacted that way. And now he works as a trainer at a Havana Jim helping to hopefully train maybe the next Cuban taekwondo fighter as he can no longer compete. And have you ever wanted to hit a ref? I know I have, But instead what I want you to do is hit up all your friends and let them know about Daily Sports History so they can become a sports historian just like you. And come back next week for more Daily Sports History and the answer. Today's tribute question is after what war was taekwondo started? And it started in Seoul, South Korea after World War Two