Yeah, WTF stand for World Taekwondo Federation. Cuban gets pissed. Kicks ref. For all you who give a shit about Olympics. Video (ed. plus some back story) after the jump. Au revoir Frere Jack.
Sportsline
Skippomac adds: There is some juicy back story here as well. Taekwondo is on the bubble of elimination from the Olympics (sports are added and removed from the olympics every cycle). In an attempt to stave off elimination, the World Taekwondo Federation had a meeting in June where they apparently asked the 25 countries competing this year to "to sign an agreement to not protest or file complaints in the Olympics in an effort to keep taekwondo in the Olympics," according to this report by Thomas Leemon (yes, THAT Thomas Leemon).
This all went in the crapper when favored American Steven Lopez, of the famous Fighting Lopez's, lost to a questionable call a couple days ago and his coach (manager? head of delegation? something.) Herb Perez went BONKERS, not only filing a protest but blowing the whole lid off the attempts to keep, uh... well, a lid on protests. The USA Taekwondo organization has apparently decided that it is better to toe the party line, however, and threw old Herb under the bus with this notice following a much more positive report of the Lopez incident:
NOTE: The views expressed by the U.S. Olympic Head of Team for Taekwondo, as published in some news articles regarding the Olympic taekwondo competition, do not necessarily reflect the views of USA Taekwondo. USAT continues to work with the World Taekwondo Federation to ensure a level playing field for all athletes.Translation: "Sit and spin, Perez." All for an apparently lost cause anyway. If you are going to go out, don't go out like a punk, stand up for your boy. Weak.
Also, the ref is Swedish, not Chinese. I expect Mumbles said that he was Chinese because (a) they are in China and (b) while getting kicked in the face he looks like an Asian from a World War II propaganda poster:
Normally, sans foot, referee Chakir Chelbat (of beautiful Trelleborg, the pride of Skåne County), looks like this:
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