Diogo da Silva

Diogo da Silva
Personal information
Surname:	Diogo André Silvestre da Silva
Nationality:	Brazil
Birthday:	March 7, 1982
Place of birth:	São Sebastião do Caí
Size:	178 cm

Diogo André Silvestre da Silva (born March 7, 1982 in São Sebastião do Caí ) is a Brazilian Taekwondoin . It starts in the weight class up to 68 kilograms.

Da Silva grew up in Panama and, inspired by Jackie Chan , joined a taekwondo club. He played his first international title fights at the Junior World Championship in 1998 in Istanbul . In the class up to 63 kilograms he was able to reach the semi-finals right away and win bronze. In the adult division, he first took part in the 2001 World Cup in Jeju-si , where he made it to the round of 16 in the class up to 67 kilograms. Two years later, at the 2003 World Cup in Garmisch-Partenkirchen , he narrowly missed the semi-finals and his first World Cup medal by a quarter-final defeat against Mark Lopez , but achieved his best result so far at a World Cup. At the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo , he finally won his first international medal with bronze. Da Silva qualified for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens . In the class up to 68 kilograms he was initially eliminated in the quarter-finals, but reached the battle for third place with two wins in the hope round. After a loss to Song Myeong-seob , he finished fourth. In the battle for bronze, based on the Black Panther movement , da Silva came to the mat with black gloves in order to protest against the lack of support from amateur athletes in his home country.

In 2006, da Silva won his only medal at the Pan American Championships with bronze in Buenos Aires . At the Pan American home games in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 , he won the first Brazilian gold medal in Taekwondo. After a few years without successful title fights, he found his way back to success in 2011. In Rio de Janeiro he secured the lightweight title at the military world championship, at the international Olympic qualification tournament in Baku he finished third and secured participation in his second Olympic Games in London in 2012 . There he came in fifth place after losing in the battle for the bronze medal Terrence Jennings .

Web links

• Diogo da Silva in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Diogo da Silva on the TaekwondoData.com website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Diogo Silva. Retrieved June 17, 2012 .