it's a contact sport, but not that kind of contact

OK, so I'd said previously that I wasn't planning on watching any Olympics coverage, but I've ended up actually watching quite a bit, relatively speaking. I watched some of the gymnastics coverage, some of the swimming coverage, some of the beach volleyball coverage and random bits of things that have just been on TV during NBC's mega-Olympics broadcasts. And the men's basketball final is tonight, starting at 11:30pm, which I'm planning to stay up for.

I have not seen any coverage of the taekwondo competition, but I found out about this story. Angel Matos from Cuba was disqualified in a bronze-medal match for taking more time than allotted while he was waiting for medical attention. They are allowed one minute of injury time, and he was disqualified when his time ran out.

I suppose I could see how he could be upset to lose a medal because of a technicality. I don't know the specifics of what happened, though I would assume that the medical attention would be coming from his own people, since it wouldn't make sense to me that a contender could be penalized for taking too much time when it's the official medical people who aren't responsive in the time allotted.

So, was he in fact upset? Yes. Did he object to the disqualification? Yes. What else did he do? Well, he showed his dissatisfaction with the results by kicking the Swedish referee in the face. Yep, you read that correctly. He took his objection to the physical attack level. The judge will require stitches in his lip.

The World Taekwondo Federation (Derail for a second - can I just say that I'm giggling a little bit about the abbreviation they're using for their website? OK, back to the story.) has recommended that Matos be banned for life. I would certainly agree with that course of action. It sounds like there were very set rules, which he violated, so therefore, he was disqualified. Even if he did have a legitimate argument against the disqualification, the solution was NOT TO KICK THE JUDGE IN THE FACE. What if it was a baseball game, and the umpire made a bad call on the batter? Would it be ok for the batter to turn around and hit the umpire with the bat? What if it was a bad call on the pitcher? Would it be ok for the pitcher to throw a ball at the umpire's face? What if it was a basketball game, and the referee made a bad call? Would it be ok for the player to throw the basketball at the referee? What if it was a football game? Would it be ok for the player to tackle the referee? Matos' action went way above and beyond bad sportsmanship. I don't know what the laws are like there, but I would imagine that in the States, Matos could potentially be prosecuted for assault.

There was also mention in the article that a recommendation had been made to ban Matos' coach as well. I thought that was a bit odd since he couldn't control what Matos did at that time. And then I read what the coach said.

Matos' coach was unapologetic.

"He was too strict," Leudis Gonzalez said, referring to the decision to disqualify Matos. Afterward, he charged the match was fixed, accusing the Kazakhs of offering him money.

Too strict. As in, "he followed the rules too closely"? What the hell does that mean? Aren't rules set forth to be followed, the ages of the Chinese gymnasts notwithstanding? Was the coach expecting that the judge should have let Matos go a little bit over the time limit allotted? How much over? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? 4 minutes? I can see that the coach might want to be supportive of his fighter, but it seems to me that he could have done that without condoning the unnecessary violence that Matos exhibited. If he's ok with what Matos did, does that mean that he's going to teach any other fighters under his watch the same kinds of principles? And isn't it a little too convenient that after his fighter was disqualified, he *then* was crying "fixed match"?

Years ago, for reasons too stupid to go into, I took a taekwondo class for a couple of weeks. I will admit that I don't recall too much of what they told us, and I don't remember getting too much on the philosophy, though I wasn't in there long enough to find out, but the kind of behaviour exhibited by Matos seems to go against the teachings associated with taekwondo.

I would expect that any serious student of taekwondo would be appalled at Matos' actions. It will be interesting to see what happens to Matos and his coach.