The decision of the referee is final. We don’t care what country you come from or what system you grew up under, that’s one of the immutable laws of sports. Whine about it, and you’re going to find yourself headlining Whiner of the Week.

We’re not sure that anyone in Cuba is a WOW reader, and we don’t care. We’re still picking Angel Matos as our final Olympic Whiner of the Week. For our money, the taekwondo athlete is the top dishonoree not just for these games but for every one we remember.

Matos was fighting for the bronze medal in the over-176 pounds classification when he felt himself to be injured. He sat down on the mat while a doctor checked him out. Meanwhile, a one-minute injury time-out clock was ticking. The rules of taekwondo are clear: you get one minute to return to action; if you don’t get up by then, the match is over and you lose.

The referee, Chakir Chelbat of Sweden, waited the minute, told Matos to resume fighting, and when Matos showed no interest in getting up, Chelbat disqualified him.

Suddenly, Matos got over both his injury and his lethargy. He got up, shoved a judge and then kicked Chelbat in the head for the crime of enforcing the rules. Matos’ coach, Leudis Gonzalez, refused to apologize for the unprovoked attack. Instead, he complained that Chelbat was “too strict.”

Matos and Gonzalez were banned from international competition for life. As could be expected, they think that’s unfair.

Dishonorable mentions:

1)      Weng Wei
The executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee took time out from his busy schedule of patting himself on the back for the swell job he’s done to slam the media for daring to report about human rights, pollution, Tibet and China’s censorship of the Internet. "So many criticisms in this room just reflect how biased some of the media are about China, how little some of the media understand China," he whined not long after two news photographers were detained by police for taking picture of a demonstration. Who’s the guy think he is, anyway, Dick Cheney?

2)      Jim Lefebvre
After failing as a big-league manager, Lefebvre found new life and presumably a nice contract coaching the Chinese Olympic Baseball Team. He taught them all the fine points of the game, including how to throw beanballs, which his pitchers demonstrated during a nasty game against the United States. Afterwards, Lefebvre whined that the Americans slid too hard into home. And people wonder why baseball got kicked out of the Games.

3)      Jennifer Lopez
J-Lo? A WOW dishonoree? We were as surprised as you are about it, but we can’t avoid it. After Michael Phelps won his unprecedented eighth gold medal and became the darling of the U.S. media, J-Lo whined after a “Good Morning America” segment that she “couldn’t understand why everyone is talking about that swimmer,” according to a GMA source. “And then she yammered on about how she was the one training for a triathlon just six months after giving birth, and how that was the big story right now, not ‘the swimmer.’ ”

4)      Herb Perez
The team leader of the American taekwondo squad had the same problem as the Cuban Matos: He didn’t like the officiating in a bout that would end with U.S. star Steven Lopez reduced to fighting for the bronze. Everybody in taekwondo agreed to act like gentlemen before the games because the sport is reportedly close to getting the Olympic boot. So Matos kicks and Perez starts whining about the judging. “When (poor judging) happens to you, you’re told to shut up and not say anything because of what will happen to you, or what will happen to the sport,” Perez said. “If this is truly what taekwondo is about, maybe taekwondo shouldn’t be in the Olympics.” Seems like he’s doing his best to make that happen.

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