Ángel Matos

Ángel Matos medal table
Taekwondo
Cuba
Olympic games
gold	2000 Sydney	up to 80 kg
Pan American Games
gold	2007 Rio	up to 80 kg

Ángel Valodia Matos Fuentes (born December 24, 1976 in Holguín ) is a former Cuban taekwondo fighter. He was an Olympic champion in 2000 and was banned for life in 2008.

Matos started at the first Olympic Taekwondo competitions in 2000 and was the first fighter in his class up to 80 kg to win the gold medal after defeating the German Faissal Ebnoutalib in the final. In 2004 Angel Matos started again in the class under 80 kg, but could not place more than eleventh place there. Then Matos won the 2007 Pan American Games .

Also at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 , Matos initially won his round of 16 and quarter-finals in the 80 kg class. In the semifinals against Arman Tschilmanow from Kazakhstan, he was already 3-2 in the lead, but was then disqualified after he had exceeded a treatment break. He then kicked the Swedish referee Chakir Chelbat's face . Matos and his trainer Leudis González , who interfered in the turmoil, were subsequently banned for life by the Taekwondo World Association, who saw this behavior as a serious offense against the spirit of Taekwondo and the Olympic Games. Matos' previous results at the 2008 Olympic Games have also been deleted. In addition, he was forever banned from active sport by the Cuban sports leadership, which meant the end of his career as a Taekwondo fighter. Cuba's ex-head of state Fidel Castro defended Matos' freak and spoke of a “mafia” that had robbed Cuba's athletes of their medals.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Report on the scandal at the 2008 Olympic Games
2. ↑ faz.net Fidel Castro is angry with the Mafia on August 26, 2008

Web links

• Profile on beijing2008.cn ( Memento from March 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
• Ángel Matos in the official Cuban online encyclopedia EcuRed (Spanish)