Thailand’s Panipak Wongpattanakit has won gold in the dying moments in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Taekwondo women’s -49kg at Makuhari Messe.
Panipak Wongpattanakit can now add Olympic champion to her growing list of accolades after snatching the gold medal from Spain’s Adriana Cerezo Iglesias in the final seconds of the women’s taekwondo -49kg event at Tokyo 2020.
Upon winning gold, the 23-year-old jumped into her coaches arms as he lifted the newly crowned Olympic champion into the air.
The world no.1 from Thailand picked up her nation’s first gold medal in the sport. As the reigning world champion in her category she headed into Tokyo 2020 as a medal favourite.
Thailand has previously only won gold in weightlifting and boxing while they’ve also won several silver and bronze medals in taekwondo – Wongpattanakit was a Rio 2016 bronze medallist in the women’s 49kg.
Silver medallist Cerezo Iglesias caused an upset earlier on in the day when she defeated People’s Republic of China’s two-time Olympic champion WU Jingyu during their quarter-final contest. She also defeated world no.2 Tijana Bogdanovic of Serbia in the Round of 16.
The 17-year-old is already a European champion at both junior (2019) and senior (2021) level.
“I’m extremely happy [to be Spain’s first medallist]. I hope many other team mates will manage to get many more medals for Spain,” Cerezo Iglesias said.
In the bronze medal contest Israel’s Abishag Semberg and Serbia’s Tijana Bogdanovic clinched bronze medals in their wins over Turkey’s Rukiye Yildirim an Japan’s YAMADA Miyu respectively.
