HAVANA, Cuba – Cuba’s only Olympic gold medal in taekwondo, won by Holguin native Ángel Valodia Matos 24 years ago, It was sold for $51,620 at an auction this week in Boston, United States.
According to the RR Auction house websiteThe Cuban athlete’s medal had an estimated selling price of 45,000 dollars and was among the medals for which the highest price was paid.
The most valuable medal in the show was the gold medal won by George Eyser at the 1904 St. Louis Games in the rope climbing event. Eyser was a gymnast who had had one leg amputated after being hit by a train. He competed in all events with a wooden prosthesis placed above his knee. His medal was auctioned for 80,163 out of an estimated 100,000.
At the auction, which ended on July 18, two other awards from Cuban athletes were sold, while the silver medals of unidentified baseball players from the island’s teams in Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008 were apparently left pending for a better opportunity.
A baseball gold medal won at the 2004 Athens Games tournament sold for 21,588 out of an estimated 15,000. In the Greek capital, the Cuban team defeated Australia 6-2 in the final exactly 20 years ago, a golden prize that would be the last for the Cubans who hope to revive their laurels on the road to Los Angeles 2028, with the reinforcement of the major leaguers.
The silver medal won by Greco-Roman wrestler Yasmani Lugo at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games was finally auctioned for $26,121 in Boston when it was estimated at $20,000. This was the last great international performance by the Olympic runner-up from Pinar del Río, who subsequently had to deal with injuries, weight problems and the emergence of new figures in his 98 kg division, such as Santiago native Gabriel Rosillo.
The historic medal of Cuban taekwondo athlete Angel Valodia Matos was achieved in the 80 kg category at the Sydney Games, just when this sport made its Olympic debut. Matos won undefeated by defeating Chilean Felipe Soto, Mexican Victor Estrada, Swedish Roman Livaja and in the final the Moroccan naturalized German Faisaal Ebnoutalib. In Athens 2004 he lost in his first fight with the Aztec Estrada.
In 2008 it was his fatal year after being banned for life by the International Federation and the International Olympic Committee after kicking a referee in the head in disagreement with his disqualification, which would deprive him of a bronze medal during the Beijing Olympics tournament. His reprehensible action was seen live and direct by a worldwide television audience.
“Valodia is now working as a security guard at a nightclub,” he told Cubanet a source from Holguín, the province where the Olympic champion was previously a coach at the Sports Initiation School (EIDE).
Other highly valued Olympic medals by Cubans at RR Auction in previous auctions were the two gold medals won by boxer Roniel Iglesias, from London 2012 and Tokyo 2020, each sold for more than $83,000, and two others by Olympic champions shooter Leuris Pupo (2012) and long jumper Iván Pedroso (2000), each sold for more than $70,000.
The Boston-based Olympic auction included more than 400 items including winners’ and participants’ medals, torches, pins, badges and other items. For the first time, a torch from the 2024 Paris Olympics, which open on July 26, was put up for public sale and sold this week for $44,549.
