As a young girl growing up in the Middle East, she faced criticism and scrutiny for being a woman in sports.

However, her family's support and determination to excel in a discipline not commonly practised by Arab women propelled her to the top of the world rankings.

Al-Sadeq, now 28, made history by becoming the first Jordanian and Arab woman to be ranked world number one following her victory at the Saudi Grand Prix in December 2022 - a result which boosted her chances of qualifying for a second successive Olympics in Paris.

"I believe that God put me in this place to break the stereotype, to show all societies that girls can play a combat sport, girls can wear a hijab and fight," the two-time Asian gold medallist told Olympics.com from Amman.

"Girls can inspire other girls to take the step and follow their dream, to practise the sport they love, not just taekwondo."

Al-Sadeq made her name internationally in 2018, when she won at the Asian Games in Jakarta and took silver in the Asian Championships.

She followed up by winning the Asian Championships in 2021 and 2022.

At her first Olympics - the Tokyo 2020 Games postponed until 2021 - Al-Sadeq's photo went viral because of her perceived resemblance to American musician Lady Gaga. 

The likeness, though flattering, gained her traction online and followers on her social media platforms.

Meanwhile, at the Olympics, she reached the round of 16.

"I grew up in an athletic family, where all of us practiced taekwondo," she said. "In the beginning, I used to receive criticism from people for the fact that I'm a female who plays a combat sport.

"The criticism was because I look quite girly, it was always 'you look too soft how can you be a taekwondoka?'"

Inspired by her older brother Yazan Al Sadeq’s success at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, she even dropped gymnastics, which she'd practised in her early childhood, to concentrate on taekwondo.

And despite failing to qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympics, where her compatriot Ahmad Abughaush won Jordan’s first Olympic medal as he won gold in the men's under-68 kg tournament, Al-Sadeq pushed on to reach the unique position of world number one.

But that route has been less than straightforward as the under-54 category is not one of the four men's Olympic weight divisions.

A career that began with a world junior title in 2016 reached its highest point so far when Bae beat Russia's Georgy Popov 53-24 in the Manchester final.

By the end of the 2019 season, however, before the coronavirus lockdown froze the action in 2020, Bae had already had his first outing in the under-58kg, or flyweight category that is currently the lightest on the Games programme.

It could not have gone better, as he won the title at the Grand Slam in Wuxi, defeating fellow countryman Lee Min-Yeong 2-1 in the final.

"I will make it to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in five years, I will make sure of it," he told World Taekwondo.

"I will train with the seniors and control all physical and mental aspects of the training."

Since resuming the sport in 2021, Bae has maintained strong momentum, even if another global title has narrowly evaded him.

At the start of 2021 he dropped back down to his former weight category of under-54kg and won the Asian Championships in Beirut, beating Iran's Hossein Lotfi 34-13 in the final.

Shortly afterwards he moved back up to the under-58kg category to win the Beirut Open, and he stayed at that weight in 2022, underlining his huge potential as he took the Asian Championships under-58kg title.

That was ideal preparation for him to defend his world under-54kg title in the Mexican city of Guadalajara, where - despite being ultimately unsuccessful - he contributed to one of the most celebrated contests in the event's history.

Bae was involved in a classic semi-final with home favourite Cesar Rodriguez that amazed the sizeable and voluble crowd.

After two rounds that featured stunning body shots and head kicks, the match went to a decider and was only decided in the closing seconds.

Rodriguez twice received medical treatment and looked exhausted but summoned the energy to land the crucial body shot to defeat the defending champion.

It was a match worthy of being the final but the home athlete’s efforts were not enough to seal gold as he lost the final to Hungary’s Omar Salim, who thus replicated the world title victory his father had achieved 31 years earlier.

Bae had to settle for a second world medal of a different colour – but the experience will doubtless prove hugely beneficial to him as he pushes on to his Paris goal.

Expectations for Bae have been high given his extraordinary record of victories since he began in the sport.

At the 2016 World Junior Championships, where he competed in the under-45kg category, Popov was among those Bae defeated in the five rounds required to reach the final, where he beat Chinese Taipei's Chang Cheng-Chun 5-0.

The following year he won the Asian Games youth title before moving up to the senior ranks in the under-54kg class. The weight and company may have changed, but the victories continued as he won the Korean Open and the WT President’s Cup - Asian.

The World Championships began Bae's 2019 season in spectacular fashion, and he followed up with wins at the Korea Open and then in Wuxi.

Speaking to World Taekwondo after his Manchester win, Bae said: "I didn’t even realise I had won the gold medal; it all went so quickly.

"Only when people asked me for photographs and my autograph afterwards I realised it.

"I am really happy I won the World Championships. I have been training since middle school and I am now at university. I train three times a day for almost five hours."

When preparing for the tournament, Bae only had one motivation.

"I wanted to take the gold medal home to my parents and my coaches. They have supported me since I started practicing the sport and it was all for them.

"Physical training is very important, so I have been practising more and more. This is how I got the medal and my dream has now come true."

He added: "For the last two months, I have been training my mind every night before I go to sleep. I also think that is what helped me win this time around."

Bae is now wary of what his future opponents will try and do to defeat him.

"It is great that I won by so many points, but now my next opponents will have seen my techniques," he said.

"I am worried about this for future matches, so I will have to slightly change my fighting style so I can beat them again."

Look out for him in the Paris 2024 qualifiers – and beyond… 

It was a measure of the 24-year-old Chinese athlete's prowess that her victory, after losing the first round, came as no huge surprise.

Luo had won three World Taekwondo Grand Prix titles earlier in the year and she continued her winning run in Mexico by defeating Chinese Taipei's Chia-ling Lo in the final.

The two are almost mirror images of each other: tall, slim, leggy fighters, and Luo managed to win the opening round 2-1.

The second round continued in similar fashion, with the two fighters cancelling each other out.

Though the points at the end of the second were even at 1-1, Luo took the round, the match and the gold on superiority.

Afterwards she told World Taekwondo how she had started in the sport.

"When I was 11 or 12, in elementary school during a math class, a coach was walking outside the classroom and he saw me and came in and said, 'stand up', to see my height," Luo recalled.

"Then the coach talked to my father to see if I would like to train Taekwondo."

Her promise was almost immediately evident, and in 2018 she won her first big title as she took gold at the Asian Games in Jakarta-Palembang.

Reflecting on her most recent success, she added: "The final was the best, because the body condition during that time was the best, I was in perfect condition.

"But the tougher fight was Jones."

Before the Covid-19 lockdown Luo had added one Grand Prix, one Grand Slam and multiple Open golds to her collection.

During her time out of competition - almost two years - her coach worked hard to perfect her technique.

"During those two years, I wanted to go to competitions, but I could not," she said.

"So I treated every day’s training as a competition."

The two-years of in-depth personal and team training have paid off in a year where she has also won the Asian Taekwondo Championships title for a second time.

"My strong point is that I am taller than most fighters in the category and I have long legs," she said.

"In terms of technique, the head kick is my best move.

"Entering the field of taekwondo, I think was some kind of destiny, I never thought I could have gone this far.

"I have a sense of mission, that is not only for my own sake, but also for my country and our team."

This includes such talents as Britain's 2019 world champion and Olympic silver medallist Bradly Sinden, and South Korea's Lee Dae-Hoon, a three-time world champion and Olympic silver and bronze medallist.

By the time he contested the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics in 2021, however, Zhao had done enough in competition against both men to know he was capable of winning on his day.

Besides, Zhao arrived in the Japanese capital with his own hugely impressive CV that also included world titles in 2017 and 2019 in the under-63kg bantamweight division.

Zhao was honoured by his country as he was chosen to be the Chinese flagbearer at the Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony, a duty he shared with women's volleyball player Zhu Ting. 

When it came to his competition, fate would decree that he would face both of his perennial rivals.

After defeating Afghanistan athlete Abdullah Sediqi 22-20, and the Dominican Republic's Bernardo Pié 13-8, Zhao earned a semi-final against Sinden which finished 33-25 in favour of the Briton. 

Sinden would go on to lose a winning position in the final in the last seconds. against Uzbekistan's Ulugbek Rashitov.

So the 6ft 2in athlete from Liaoning then had to concentrate his mind on a bronze medal match which pitted him against none other than Lee, who had come through two rounds of repechage after his shock round-of-16 defeat by the eventual gold medallist.

The Chinese athlete, however, fancied his chances against Lee's dynamic attacking skills.

In the aftermath of a 17-7 win over the South Korean in 2020 in the Sofia Grand Prix Final, Zhao told World Taekwondo: "My coach has a lot of experience, especially with Lee. 

"We learned a lot from him and we know his strong points, Lee is a great fighter, so defence was more important than attack.

"When I defended, it was a good position to counter. Also, a good defence can make an opponent lose his confidence and lose his spirit."

Assessing himself as a player, Zhao cited his physical advantages - "I am tall" - and the resultant tactical advantage - "I am good at distance control, so I know where the opponent is and where to attack".

His favourite move is the high-scoring and crowd-pleasing spinning back kick - an ideal weapon for a defensive fighter.

But he does not always fight at long range. "For some opponents it is good to stay away, for some, it is better to stay in close," he said.

In Tokyo all that careful preparation paid off again as Zhao earned bronze with a narrow 17-15 victory.

One other point for his rivals to bear in mind is that Zhao is married to Shuyin Zheng, the winner of the Rio 2016 heavyweight gold.

Like Zheng's great rival - Britain's world champion Bianca Cook, who works out with, and roars in-match tactical advice to her husband, Moldova's Aaron Cook - Zhang's relationship with Zhao extends beyond the romantic to the professional.

"During training we always stick together," he told World Taekwondo. "During matches, she makes me more confident. She inspires me a lot."

The country currently boasts 22 medals, twice as many as the next nation, China.

And, at just 22-years-old, Jun Jang is part of that great tradition having returned from the Tokyo 2020 Games with bronze in the men's under-58 kilograms flyweight category.

While Jang is young, he is experienced. In 2016 he won the World Championships youth title at under-51kg, and the following year he added the Asian youth title, routing Carlo Dionisio of Philippines 42-6 in the final.

Immediately afterwards, aged 17, he competed in his first senior Grand Prix event, in Moscow, and then earned qualification to the Wuxi Grand Slam, following up by progressing all the way to the final before losing 37-16 to fellow countryman Tae-hun Kim.

In 2018, Jang won the Asian Championships in Ho Chi Minh City and the Korean Open before launching an audacious season in Grand Prix competition, earning gold in Moscow, bronze in Taoyuan, gold in the Grand Prix final at Fujairah and gold again in the Grand Slam in Wuxi.

The following year, at the World Championships in Manchester, Jang earned gold in the men's under-58kg category before adding further Grand Prix wins in Rome, Chiba, Sofia and the Grand Prix final in Moscow.

His momentum was halted only by the pandemic. And upon returning to competition last year, he earned bronze after losing his semi-final to Tunisia's Mohamed Jendoubi, 25-19.

In 2022, Jang returned to business as usual with golds in his first three competitions - the Fujairah Open, the Turkish Open and the Rome Grand Prix, where his opponent in the final, satisfyingly, was Jendoubi.

This was despite the fact that he had caught COVID-19 just a month ahead of the Rome event.

"The last month I got COVID so the recovery was very hard," he told World Taekwondo. "It was difficult to train while I was recovering. 

"It has been a long time since I participated so to have competed and won gold, I am delighted."

It was not just the break from COVID-19 which presented challenges but also the introduction of the new best-of-three-rounds format which was being implemented for the first time in Rome.

"It was the first time to use these new rules so I was very pleased with how I adapted," Jang added. "In all my fights I played them the same and did my best all the time. If I got to two rounds first, I was able to save my energy and didn’t have to fight in a third round which helped me later on. I like the new format."

Looking ahead, Jang has very clear ambitions - "only gold medals," he says with a smile.

"This year I already competed at the Turkish Open and Fujairah Open so I already have got 40 ranking points.

"Now I want to focus on the Grand Prix. I will go step by step. Next is Paris. I will also compete in Guadalajara at the World Championships. 

"I am focused on participating at the Olympic Games in Paris. I want to qualify with a top ranking so I need to win as many gold medals in Grand Prix competition as I can."

Reflecting on his victory in the final, he said: "When I faced him [Jendoubi] in the Olympics it was the first time I had competed against him. I didn’t know his style.

"After the Olympics I did a video analysis so that’s why here in Rome I was able to make other strategies."

Looking ahead to the next Olympics he added: “In Paris I know the other athletes and their strategies better. I didn’t know them in Tokyo. So now I know more I hope to do better.”

The 67-year-old from Singapore embraced taekwondo before she embraced religion, although for her the two merge in terms of their spiritual values.

Sim took up taekwondo before becoming a nun and missionary.

She wears a fifth dan black belt, is a certified Singaporean referee for both kyorugi and poomsae and has 32 competitive medals in a career that only took off when she was in her 50s.

Sim's competitive career started in kyorugi, in Singapore's second national competition in 1978.

"It was contact sparring and there was no padding and no weight categories," she told World Taekwondo. 

"I really went for it and got a bronze, but I was really beaten up, so that was the one and only."

After joining the Sisters of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood, she became a missionary in 1999, only returning to Singapore to settle in 2004. For that reason, she came late to international competition, in her 50s.

Her first experience of the World Poomsae Championships came at Vladivostok in 2011. Seven years later she won bronze at the Taipei 2018 Worlds, and four years later she stepped proudly, if a little gingerly, on top of the podium.

Sim told World Taekwondo about her long journey towards that top step in South Korea.

"Ever since I was a child, as far back as I can remember, something in me longed for martial arts," she said. 

"I have always been petite and small in stature, so I wanted to learn something so that I don't have to carry a weapon - I wanted to be the weapon."

Her youthful ambition was to join Singapore's military. 

"I went to the armed forces, but at that time, there was no field service for women - only clerical duties," she said.

Shortly afterwards, in 1971, she enrolled in taekwondo at her local church.

"I thought if I learned a martial art, I could join the police force, but I did not have the height or the weight," she said. "I tried to grow - but I could not!"

Meanwhile, a new career choice emerged. 

When she encountered the Franciscan Sisters she recalled thinking: "Why not join God's army? If that is not service – what is?"

Joining the order, she embarked upon a life of poverty, chastity and obedience. As a Franciscan missionary, she would serve in hospitals in Zimbabwe and at a retreat in England. Since returning to Singapore, she has served in hospitals and a hospice for children with cancer.

"It has always been a contradiction," she admitted. "People say, 'what has taekwondo got to do with a sister?'"

"For me, there is only one spirit, whether it is the Christian spirit or the taekwondo spirit - it is a universal spirit. "Values matter: Love! Peace! Respect! Harmony! Unity!"

Reflecting upon her recent triumph in Goyang, Sim added: "Age is catching up with me - I have injuries all over.

"I have strains in both knees - MRIs tell me I should not be kicking. And both shoulders have tears."

Having prepared for the Championships in February with the Singapore national team, where the second oldest athlete involved was 27, she suffered a knee injury that required a brace that, she learned with dismay, she was not allowed to wear in Goyang.

"Because of the spirit of taekwondo, I could overcome the pain barrier," she said. "That taught me what indomitable spirit is - it’s 'go for it!'

"I thought this was the ultimate and if I got a gold medal for my country, I would retire from competition.

"But now that World Taekwondo is considering an over-70 category – why not?"

But this three-time world and three-time Asian Games champion, whose Grand Prix victories go into double figures, still seems to be operating under what he describes as an "Olympic jinx".

After working fiendishly hard on preparation during every day of the pandemic, Lee focused his energies as never before on the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

"I am preparing for this as if it is my last Olympics, "he told World Takewondo. "Even if I fight in Paris 2024, I don't think I can get gold."

And Lee's honesty extends to admitting that, despite the gifts that have made him one of the most respected male players in the game, he still has nerves.

"I am afraid that I will not be able to fight my best at the Olympics - it's the Olympic jinx," Lee added.

"This year, athletes could have changed their techniques and improved their skills. I have not seen them for a year as they have not been fighting, so I am kind of nervous."

All of Lee's premonitions came good - or rather, bad - in Tokyo's Makuhari Messe Hall A. 

The top seed suffered an agonising 21-19 first round defeat to Uzbekistan's 19-year-old Ulugbek Rashitov, who would go on to earn a shock gold by turning around his final with Britain's reigning world champion Bradly Sinden in the final 10 seconds, with an audacious swivelling kick to the head followed by one to the body. 

And so another world champion challenger in Tokyo sank disconsolately to the mat.

Lee then had to suffer the - relative - indignity of two rounds of repechage contests in the men's under-68kg featherweight category. 

This proved to be far from straightforward as he earned an 11-9 verdict over Seydou Fofana of Mali, and then came through 30-21 against Iran's tough eighth seed Mirhasem Hosseini.

While the gold had gone, bronze was still up for grabs as far as Lee was concerned.

At the London 2012 Olympics, he won silver, beaten 17-8 by Spain's Joel Gonzalez. Four years later at the Rio Games he earned another medal - this time bronze as Jordan's Ahmad Abughaush become a surprise winner.

But his hope of collecting a third Olympic medal in Tokyo disappeared with a 17-15 defeat by China's third seed Zhao Shuai, the Rio 2016 under-58kg gold medallist.

Can Lee, who turned 30 in February 2022, push on for another tilt at Olympic gold despite his assessment of his chances in Paris? In his favour is the pandemic-related timing, which means he only has a couple more years to wait.

Don't rule it out.

Lee's peers in global taekwondo recognise him as a special talent.

Iran's master fighter Mahdi Khodabahshki has described South Korea's featherweight phenomenon as "a legend in taekwondo".

France's Haby Niara, the Rio 2016 silver medallist in the women's under-67kg class, said: "He is the best fighter I have ever seen. When he does taekwondo he is playing – it is a game for him."

Lee started taekwondo at his father's dojang as a toddler. "When I was five, I started learning taekwondo," he said. "Through growing up with taekwondo, I love taekwondo."

World Taekwondo commentator John Cullen has watched Lee's progress for many years.

"When he was studying at Yongin University, he was playing at under-58kg and he would do four training sessions a day, then he would go running at night to lose weight," Cullen said.

"He ran so much, that he has this amazing heart and lung capacity."

Today, though he is still as lean, Lee is powerful with it. And in the new game - pushing has been allowed since 2017 - upper body strength is a bonus. 

"He is physically strong," said Cullen. "Nobody outwrestles him in the clinch."

The reason Lee is such a high scorer, according to Cullen, is his no-fear approach to distance management. "The reason he is so accurate is that he stands at danger-distance," the commentator said.

"He’s a killer. He looks so quiet and kind - but he is a baby-faced assassin."

During the pandemic, Lee was fortunate to live and train in South Korea - which managed to contain COVID-19 without imposing mass lockdowns. It meant he was able to work out with his home team in the city of Daejeon.

"I have been train­ing with seven people, I never trained alone - we live togeth­er and my coach also lives in Daejeon," he said in 2020.

There were predictions in the sport that once Lee had married and had a child his form would deteriorate. That did not happen.

"I also thought that athletes who are parents go down," he said. "I want to prove that this is not true."

Lee is known for his fitness and ability to battle tirelessly for three rounds, as well as the golden round when necessary.

But 2020's enforced break from the competitive schedule offered him the opportunity to upgrade his bodywork. During this time he concentrated particularly on upper body strength, a key component of clinch combat.

"If you do weight training, your physique gets really good, but it soon goes down again," he said. "So I made it a rule to do this every day to be consistent."

Challenging the self is a key factor in Lee's personal train­ing. "I am increasing my number of push-ups every day, for example," Lee said in 2020. "I need motivation! I am harsh on my­self. I will double my physical training just before the Olympics.

"From the start of 2021, I will double my training and expert coaches will come in to work with me."

Many players used 2020 as an opportunity to rehabilitate chronic injuries. Not Lee.

"Usually if you get injured, you have to stop training but for 11 years, I have not had any injuries," he said. "Very physical players can get injured as they are putting a lot of power into their techniques, but athletes like me do not put in so much power - we concentrate on flexibility."

In the lead-up to Tokyo 2020, Lee announced: "I want to fulfil everything - both fighting style and outcome.

"I want to meet everyone who is preparing for the Olym­pics. I hope they are healthy wherever they are, and I want to meet them all in Tokyo."

Now he will be seeking to keep that ambition alive for at least a couple more years.

"It's an indescribable feeling to win the first medal in the history of Jordan in all the sports," Abughaush said after his landmark victory. "It's also a great feeling to listen to the national anthem of Jordan being played in Rio in front of the whole world."

The reaction in Jordan was as one might expect.

King Abdullah II and Crown Prince Hussein called the 20-year-old personally to congratulate him, as did Prince Ali, who had personally sponsored the young man's path to Rio.

There was a large public celebration as Abughaush returned to Queen Alia International Airport and shortly afterwards the Jordanian Olympic Committee awarded him 100,000 Jordanian dinars. His coach, Faris Al-Assaf, received 50,000 dinars. 

Abughaush was born in the Jordanian capital of Amman. His father is of Palestinian descent, and his grandparents were re-located from the town of Abu Ghosh to Jordan decades earlier.  

After taking up the sport at a local training centre, Abughaush progressed to the point where, aged 16, he became the only Arab athlete to win gold at the 2012 World Junior Championships held in Sharm El-Sheikh.

Two years later, he won the Jordan Olympic Committee award as the country's most promising athlete.

After missing competition in 2013 because of a ruptured cruciate ligament, Abughaush resumed his upward progress and the Rio Games were preceded by successive victories at the Fujairah Open, the Egypt Open and the Asian Olympic Games Qualifier in Manila.

Tenth-seeded, Abughaush beat Egypt's seventh seed Ghofran Zaki 9-1 in the opening round in Rio to face one of the legends of the sport in Dae-hoon Lee.

The South Korean had already won world titles in 2011 and 2013, and would go on to win another in 2017. 

At the London 2012 Olympics he had taken silver after being beaten in the final by Spain's top seed Joel Gonzalez. 

In Rio, he was determined to go one better, but his ambitions were overthrown by the man from Jordan who progressed to the semi-finals with an 11-8 win over the second seed.

In the last four, Abughaush came up against Spain's defending champion and beat him 12-7.

The final pitted him against Russia's fourth-seed, Alexey Denisenko, and he found the way to unleash Jordanian celebration with a 10-6 victory.

While that was the high point of his career, Abughaush continued to enjoy success.

He earned bronze at the 2017 World Championships and, two years later, having moved up to the under-74kg class, he took silver at the World Championships in Manchester.

On that occasion, he lost 18-11 in the final to Italy's Simone Alessio.

With fewer than 10 seconds remaining the 19-year-old trailed Britain's 22-year-old world champion Bradly Sinden by two points.

At this point the 17th-seeded Rashitov, who had beaten South Korean idol and number one seed Lee Dae-hoon in the round-of-16, produced an audacious swivelling kick to the head followed by one to the body - creating his own two-point lead.

After a flurry of activity to regain the initiative, Sinden was penalised and Rashitov ended up winning 34-29.

As the Uzbek camp rose in jubilation, Sinden, who had defeated China's formidable third seed Shuai Zhao 33-25 in his semi-final, sank disconsolately to the mat in the Makuhari Messe hall.

"I made a mistake," Sinden reflected. "As he came forward I saw that he'd stumbled, and I didn't think he would be able to attack and fair play to him he took advantage of that."

It so happened that Rashitov’s historic achievement was witnessed in person by International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, who had attended in the expectation of being able to award a first Olympic medal to a refugee athlete. Refugee Olympic Team athlete Kimia Alizadeh lost her bronze medal match, however.

One of Rashitov's coaches was killed that June which made his victory over the world champion a poignant one.

"It was very hurtful, not only for me but for all the athletes," he said.

"I was so sorry.

"But it made me stronger and I would like to dedicate this medal to him.

"It's great, the best emotion ever.

"Nothing can beat winning gold.

"I believed only in gold, I trained only for gold."

Rashitov topped his performance at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games where, as a 16-year-old, he took silver after losing 11-8 in the boys' under-48kg final to Russia's Dmitrii Shishko. He had previously beaten him 31-28 in the final of the YOG qualification tournament.

That was a massive indication of Rashitov's talents, and further confirmation arrived in July 2019 at the Asian Junior Taekwondo Championships in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Iran dominated the event, taking 10 gold medals at Prince Hamzah Hall, but Rashitov bucked the trend as he became one of two Uzbek winners, beating Iran's Pasha Atarodi 25-13 in the under-58kg class.

In October of the same year, he added another gold to his collection with victory in the men's 58kg event at the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan, China.

Reduced to just one international outing in the COVID-19 dominated year of 2020 - when he reached the last four of the Turkish Open - he began 2021 with victory at the same event in his opening competition before moving on to Tokyo….

Five months after claiming the Olympic title in dramatic fashion, Wongpattanakit was named as the best female amateur athlete of 2021 by the Sports Authority of Thailand.

She received a trophy from Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha during a ceremony in Bangkok on December 16 - less than a fortnight after being appointed as a Women in Sports ambassador by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

After her Tokyo triumph in the women's under-49 kilograms flyweight category, Wongpattanakit returned home to a hero's welcome from adoring fans and the promise of almost THB20 million (£435,700/$608,000/€512,700).

The 23-year-old arrived in Phuket from the Japanese capital along with national coach Choi Young-seok and the rest of the Thai taekwondo team.

The new Olympic champion was met at the airport by her father, Phuket Governor Narong Wunsiew, and Taekwondo Association of Thailand President Pimol Srivikorn.

Wongpattanakit, overwhelmed by the support, claimed it was the best day of her life.

She and the team also received flowers and a message of support from Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya.

"It is meaningful that Wongpattanakit and I were able to give joy and encouragement with the gold medal to the people in Thailand suffering from the new coronavirus pandemic, as well as write a page in the country's sports history," South Korean-born Choi told the Yonhap news agency.

"I want to do the best in every competition," Wongpattanakit told the Bangkok Post.

"I want to be in the next Olympics in Paris, if I'm physically fit."

Wongpattanakit had arrived in Tokyo as a strong favourite for gold given her formidable competitive record.

She won the first of her two world titles as a 17-year-old in 2015, and the following year reached the medal podium at the Rio 2016 Olympics, earning bronze after losing her quarter-final 6-5 to eventual champion Kim So-hui of South Korea.

At Tokyo 2020, Wongpattanakit claimed an 11-10 victory with a kick in the last seconds after her 17-year-old opponent, Adriana Cerezo of Spain, appeared poised for a shock gold.

Wongpattanakit - who already had world, Youth Olympic, Asian, Asian Games and Universiade titles - celebrated with her coaching staff after upgrading from bronze at Rio, while a dejected Cerezo fell to the floor at the end of the contest.

In February 2020, three months after being voted as World Taekwondo's female athlete of 2019, after regaining her world title, she told the Bangkok Post: "My aim [at Tokyo 2020] is definitely the gold medal.

"I was disappointed at the previous Olympics and that's a lesson.

"If I am 100 per cent fit and do not have an injury, I am confident that I will return to Thailand with a gold medal.

"I am almost 100 per cent ready now.

"I think my physical condition will peak when the Games come."

Although she had to wait an extra year to prove it, when the supreme challenge arrived, Wongpattanakit was ready to meet it.

Having started in the sport aged seven, Shokin has gone on to win the 2015 world title and Asian titles in 2014 and 2016, as well as finishing fifth at the Rio 2016 Olympics and earning silver at the 2014 and 2018 Asian Games

Karimov, who sent a home crowd into raptures when he won Uzbekistan’s first gold medal at the Tashkent 2019 World Taekwondo Cadet Championships, also took up the sport early, at the age of eight.

After securing a 31-11 victory against Iran’s Amirhossein Norouzi in the men’s under-41kilograms final,  Karimov told World Taekwondo he was introduced to the sport through classes at school.

"My brother used to go there," he said. "So I followed him and started practising, then I won the school competitions and started liking it more."

The gold medal, the highlight of his taekwondo career to date, was the outcome of six years of dedication to the sport which has seen the young fighter training up to six times a week, for four to five hours a day.

On top of his outstanding result in the Uzbekistan capital, Karimov was awarded the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award for the Cadet World Championships.

"I feel great, I never thought I would get the MVP award, as my aim was to just get a gold medal, but when I received the MVP, I was very happy," he added.

Karimov had warmed up for the tournament by taking part in the under-45kg competition at the Fujairah Open in the United Arab Emirates, beating home fighter Omar Ismail 18-9 in the final.

Two years earlier he had had his first experience of international competition in the under-33kg cadets category at the Asian World Taekwondo President's Cup event in Tashkent, where he also took gold.

Karimov said his family had watched all the action live at home and cried with happiness at his success.

"I was very scared when I had my first match and from the second match onwards I found strength and started believing in myself," he said.

His victory was watched by the Minister of Physical Culture and Sports of Uzbekistan, Dilmurad Nabiev, who presented Karimov with the gold medal.

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic put paid to Karimov’s immediate ambitions of competing in the World Junior Championships, which were due to have been held last year in Sofia.

But Karimov has already demonstrated he has skill and dedication enough to be a serious contender to follow his compatriot and role model into the Olympic arena.

At 34, Wu, who won the under-49 kilograms flyweight title at the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics, is seeking to achieve a taekwondo first in company with Britain's Jade Jones, who won the lightweight under-57kg at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games.

"When I heard the news of the postponement of the Olympic Games, I wanted to return to my home country immediately, because I was training with the national team in Japan at that time," Wu told World Taekwondo. 

"I wanted to see my family, especially my daughter Gloria."

Wu, who had her daughter in 2018, returned to China in April 2020 when the country was starting to get to grips with the virus. "Everything was very orderly," she said. After a short break, she got back to the hard grind of training for 2021.

"During the pandemic, we used the WeChat App to train and communicate with our teammates," Wu said. 

"A good training plan can effectively regulate physical skills, which my coach Guan Jianmin has done very well. To be honest, it is not easy to maintain a high level because of my age, but I try."

Team training restarted. "We had to train outside Beijing city," said Wu, who lives there. The training sessions were closed.

Wu's last Olympic effort in Rio ended at the quarter-final stage, where she was beaten 4-3 by Serbia's Tijana Bogdanovic, who went on to lose 7-6 to South Korea's Kim So-hui in the final.

The following year Jingyu, who also has two golds, a silver and a bronze medal from the World Championships, as well as two golds from the Asian Games and one from the Asian Championships, stepped back from the sport.

Yet a few weeks after giving birth, Wu was lacing up her running shoes once again and starting on the long road back to elite competition.

After a two-year break she returned to competition as if she had never been away, adding further medals to her collection as she gathered momentum to make her fourth Olympic appearance.

"Returning was difficult for me, as my body is not the same and I have to leave my baby at home," she told World Taekwondo after taking silver at the 2019 World Championships in Manchester. "But I want to break traditions and challenge my dream.

"I was determined to prove society wrong and come back strong. Women can have children and still do what they love and I want not only athletes, but women in society, to know that too."

Wu had reached the world final -where she lost 21-6 to Thailand's Rio 2016 bronze medallist Panipak Wongphattanakit - the hard way, having come through qualification.

She was overjoyed with her experience - and had the additional surprise of being awarded her medal by the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach.

"It was an honour to be awarded my medal by President Thomas Bach," she told World Taekwondo in Manchester. "Before I competed at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, he told me he would give me my medal.

"Unfortunately, I did not win at the Olympics and I was so disappointed. But it was a complete surprise to be awarded the medal by him [in Manchester]."

Leading up to the World Championships she had won the Fujairah Open, the WT President's Cup Asian section, the German Open and the Grand Slam qualification in Wuxi. 

After her Manchester performance, she was soon back on the podium in the WT Grand Prix Series. After missing out in Rome she took silver in Chiba and then returned to the top of the podium in Sofia.

She followed up by taking two more prestigious silver medals at the Grand Prix final in Moscow and at the main Grand Slam event in Wuxi.

"My family have supported me the whole way," she said. "I can't wait to get back to the Olympics and show women around the world that we are strong and can have a successful career and be a mother at the same time."

This remarkable competitor is now hopeful about the year ahead.

"Now, we are in 2021," she said. "I hope the Tokyo Olympics can be successfully held, and I also hope that I and my team-mates can achieve excellent results.

"The Tokyo Olympics is destined to be an extraordinary Olympic Games.

"Its successful hosting will surely bring more positive energy and hope to people all over the world."

While Hosseini has earned numerous prestigious medals, it was the nature of victory in the 2019 Chiba Grand Prix that highlighted the courage and competitiveness that gives his country such high hopes.

In the third round of the men’s under-68 kilograms final against Britain’s Christian McNeish the Iranian fighter was hit in the neck by an accidental stray punch from his opponent.

"For some seconds, I could not breathe," Mirashem Hosseini told World Taekwondo as he recalled the moment when he found himself lying on the mats looking up at the ceiling of the venue. "Everywhere was dark."

It was the second punch he had suffered in an intense, high-scoring bout. "It was a very hard punch," he said. "I felt a lot of pain."

Once again he struggled to his feet and resumed battle.

A minute remained on the clock and he had the narrowest of winning margins at 20-19. Rather than seeking to play it safe and run down the clock, Hosseini fired into whirlwind combat.

The board went to 25-20, then 27-20, then 31-20 as the Iranian fired multiple head kicks and McNeish hit the deck. The Iranian eventually took the title 36-20…

Born in the taekwondo-mad city of Mianeh, Hosseini  announced his arrival in the premier ranks of the sport by winning the Asian Championships under-58kg flyweight title in 2016. He did so four months before Iran's taekwondo team failed to win a single medal at the Rio Olympics.

The following year the 6ft 3in athlete took another big step up as he moved to the under-63kg bantamweight class.

After defeating Britain's current world under-68kg champion Bradly Sinden - his contemporary - 33-32 in an epic World Taekwondo President's Cup Europe final, Hosseini went all the way to the world final, taking silver after an 11-5 defeat by China's Rio 2016 champion Zhao Shuai.

Two months later Hosseini added another gold to his collection as he won the under-63kg title at the 2017 Summer Universiade in Chinese Taipei, beating Argentina's Lucas Guzman in the final.

The following year he earned golden revenge for his world final defeat as he beat Zhao 17-11 to take the Asian Games under-63kg title in Jakarta.

The year of 2018 also saw Hosseini establish himself at his current fighting weight - the under-68kg featherweight class. At the Manchester Grand Prix he was narrowly beaten in the final, 11-7, by South Korea's Olympic bronze medallist and world champion Lee Dae-Hoon.

In 2019, Hosseini continued his momentum with Grand Prix wins in Rome and Chiba. He also earned a second Universiade gold at Naples in the under-68kg category, as well as helping Iran earn team gold.

The latter success in particular augurs well for Iran's next Olympic showing.

Recalling the 2016 Olympics experience, Hosseini's coach Fariborz Askari told World Taekwondo after his win in Chiba last September: "Rio was a very big surprise for us, for three years Iranian taekwondo was in shock.

"Now, we are slowly growing up and waking up. We should use those bad dreams from Rio and change them."

Victory in Rome had been another significant marker for the young Iranian, given that his opponent in the final was Lee.

His South Korean rival recouped his reputation in the last big event of 2019, however, by beating Hosseini in the semi-finals of the Grand Prix final in Moscow, a Tokyo 2020 qualifier, and going on to take gold with a defeat of Sinden.

Hosseini's favourite technique is the arcing head kick, fired from up close.

"In camp, we train the clinch a lot," Hosseini said. "I try to find an opening – up or down, left or right. I have a lot of techniques in the clinch: I can kick both ways.

"But for me, the first thing is the mind. In the camp, I am always thinking about the next competition, the next strategy, the next opponent – always thinking about attacking and defending."

Hosseini took up the sport when he was nine.

He told World Taekwondo: "I saw a Jackie Chan movie and was so interested in doing martial arts. Near my home was a taekwondo club so I went there and started.

"My city is a very small town, but the only medal we don't have is an Olympic medal.

"They have every other medal: juniors, cadets, worlds, Grand Prix – everything! The dream is to get Olympic gold for the city."

Among the principal figures surfing on that wave right now is 22-year-old Saleh Elsharabaty, who is coached by the man who guided Abughaush to his landmark victory, Faris Al-Assaf.

"Now in Jordan taekwondo is the number one sport, more than football," Al-Assaf told World Taekwondo magazine.

"All the children in Jordan play it in school, and in clubs after school."

Jordan had been aiming to make a big mark at the 2022 Youth Olympics in Senegal, but that event has been postponed to 2026 amidst the disruptions of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, however, Amman has become the epicentre of home athletes' dreams after being chosen by World Taekwondo as the venue for the Asian Olympic qualification tournament after it had been moved from its original setting of Wuxi in China.

While the date for this event has yet to be set, it will loom large in the minds of Jordanian athletes, including Elsharabaty.

He will be hoping to maintain the momentum he achieved in the men’s under-80 kilograms category last year, before competition began to be held up, as he achieved his first Grand Prix title victory in Sofia.

The landmark win was concluded with a scoring kick in the final seconds which saw him defeat Egypt’s Seif Eissa 12-10.

Elsharabaty started in the sport aged seven, although he left it in his teenaged years before making a return in 2016.

"I used to be a bad boy, and my mother wanted me to be a good boy, so she sent me to a taekwondo centre," he told World Taekwondo.

"Now, I am not a bad boy!"

Al-Assaf recalled: "At the start, he did not listen to me, he was lazy! But not now! Now he has started to get good, and he is getting the medals."

Medals of increasing importance began arriving in 2018, when he took silver at the Asian Championships in Ho Chi Minh City and then reached the Moscow Grand Prix final, where he lost 29-11 to one of his weight’s big names, home fighter Maksim Khramtcov.

He followed that up by taking bronze at the Asian Games in Jakarta, losing 4-2 in his semi-final against Uzbekistan’s Nikita Rafalovich.

Despite being 20-10 up against home fighter and defending champion Bianca Walkden in the women's heavyweight final, China's Rio 2016 champion was disqualified for incurring ten fouls after her opponent had repeatedly pushed her off the mat.

The tactic employed by Walkden, who thus earned her third consecutive world title, was considered unsportsmanlike but was nevertheless within the rules, and the British athlete was quite satisfied with the outcome, declaring: "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Walkden's change of tactic had occurred after Zheng, who had already accrued seven penalty points, had become inactive after taking a ten-point lead. When the result was announced there was booing in the arena, and Zheng's coach gave the officials a thumbs-down sign.

But after the Chinese athlete had dropped to her knees on the podium, Britain's performance director Gary Hall took issue with her "disrespectful manner".

Walkden defended her tactics, saying: "I went out there needing to find a different way to win and a win is a win if you disqualify someone - it's not my fault."

Zheng, meanwhile, told Chinese media: "From the first day I picked up this sport, I understood that there was no such thing as absolute fairness in competition. I have been doing this sport for 16 years but this is the first time I have realised that a taekwondo match could be played like this.

"I wish the referee could have been fair in this competition."

A Chinese appeal, and demand that the Moroccan referee, Tarik Benradi, be banned for life, were unsuccessful.

Zheng, however, recovered from her trauma to beat Walkden in the final of the next two Grand Prix events in Chiba and Sofia -12-10 and 3-2 - before winning the Grand Prix Final in Moscow 7-4 against Serbia's Milica Mandic.

Her final action of the year, however, saw her beaten 2-0 by Walkden in the semi-final of the Wuxi Grand Slam event.

Zheng's career was starred from the off as she won world and Olympic gold at youth level in 2010. Two years later she won her first senior event at over-73 kilograms, the German Open, and in 2014 her first Grand Prix gold arrived in Suzhou.

In 2015 she won world silver in Chelyabinsk, losing 5-4 to South Korea's Oh Hye-Ri in the under-73kg category before beating Walkden, newly established as the over-73kg world champion, in the Manchester Open final.

The following year the two met in the Olympic semi-final of the heavyweight category, with Zheng going through 4-1 on superiority before she beat Mexico's Maria Espinoza 5-1 in the final.

At the following year's World Championships Zheng took bronze in the over-73kg class, and in 2018 she won the Grand Prix final at Fujairah. 

Earlier in the 2018 season she beat Walkden 6-4 in the Manchester Grand Prix final - but the following year the same venue would provide her with her least pleasant memory in the sport…

In May of last year, Sim overcame a spirited performance by Iran's Mahla Momenzadeh to win her second consecutive world taekwondo title in front of a packed crowd at the Manchester Arena. 

Having established a five-point lead, the South Korean eschewed the idea of switching to defence, but went in search of further points.

"My style is to keep attacking," she told World Taekwondo in the wake of her 11-6 victory in the final. "Attacking is most important for me so I try and attack as much as I can and don't defend too much. In Korea, we are taught to continuously kick and that's what I tried to do."

Sim's first world title had arrived two years earlier on the home ground of Muju – and she admitted that having home advantage had been something of a mixed blessing.

"In Muju I was more nervous as it was my first try to win a World Championships," she said. "Many of the people in the crowd were from Korea and I knew some of them so that did make me feel more comfortable but I was still more nervous there.

"Here in Manchester, I felt some pressure as I didn't have the same support from the audience but I was very focused as I was trying to win to maximise qualification points for the Olympics.

"Obviously I would love to get gold at Tokyo 2020 but this is my first Olympics so really I just don't want to get nervous and to go out and do my best. 

"I am working hard to improve my physical skills because I am not the biggest in my category. I am smaller than the other athletes and so I tried to step a lot as I'm not as tall as other players."

Sim had to make her talent work in the under-49kg category throughout the rest of the year.

In June, at the World Taekwondo Grand Prix staged at the Foro Italico in Rome, she claimed a silver medal after losing 8-4 in her final against Russia's Elizaveta Ryadninskaya.

At the World Taekwondo Grand Prix in Chiba, as world champion Panipak Wongpattanakit of Thailand overcame China's double Olympic champion Jingyu Wu in the under-49kg class, Sim earned a bronze medal along with Tijana Bogdanovic of Serbia.

She missed out on the podium by one place in December last year at the World Taekwondo Grand Prix Final in Moscow, where she lost her contest at the Dynamo Sports Palace for the sole bronze on offer to Turkey's Rukiye Yildrim.

In April 2018, Sim injured her knee and was out for two months and avoiding a repeat injury is at the forefront of her mind. When fighting she can't feel the injury but she can when she trains a lot, and so she has to manage her schedule to give her the best chance in Tokyo.

"My first goal is to participate in the next Olympic Games," she said to World Taekwondo in Manchester. 

"I was focused on winning this final but I am also focused on avoiding getting injured. I got injured before and this was my first event this year and without injury I can keep performing."

This 22-year-old operating at the top weight in women’s competition has been smiling a lot in recent years.

Two weeks before her 10-4 victory over Mexico’s Briseida Acosta in in the women’s over-63 kilograms final at the Foro Italica arena, Lee had earned world gold in the under-73kg category at the Manchester Arena.

Lee, who found competing in the under-73kg category easier as her opponents tended not to be as tall or powerful, said she was especially proud of her achievement in Rome given that she felt she had not had sufficient time to train since the World Championships in May.

She realises that operating in the heavyweight section of the women’s sport poses a unique challenge.

"At the next Grand Prix in Chiba there will be more powerful athletes who come so I want to do more weight training,” Lee said. 

"I want to train more for the physical side."

Lee, who took up the sport when she was at middle-school at the instigation of a friend, added: "I train in the morning for two hours and in the afternoon for another two hours. 

"When I practise taekwondo, I feel very happy. 

"Once a week I self-train after dinner. 

"When I am self-training it is just image training.”

A technique she dedicates a lot of time to in training is the head kick. 

"My favourite kick is the higher kick. 

"Especially when the body score is not so good like it was in Rome, I try more head kicks. 

"I am very good on short distance. 

"I am fast. 

"I try to make opponents keep guessing as I move quickly."

Meanwhile, Tokyo 2020 is firmly in her sights. 

"My first goal is to qualify," she said. 

"If I get it, I want to get a gold at Tokyo Olympics."

Hossein Lotfi is one of a new batch of exciting young Iranian taekwondo fighters with a bright future ahead of him. Nicknamed ‘The Grasshopper’ because of his long reach with his front leg, Hossein won gold in the male -45kg category at the World Junior Championships this week in impressive fashion.

“I was confident in myself,” he said speaking 48 hours after winning his media. “I came to perform to the best of my abilities.”

He certainly did that, making full use of that trademark front leg to land a number of head kicks in the final and secure victory within two rounds after building a 20 point lead.

“I feel quite excellent. It is a reward for all the hard work that I have put into this,” he said.

But, he is not ready to rest on his laurels and is already focusing on improving and reaching new heights.

“All that is in my mind right now is just to train and work harder. In the long term it is a dream to join the senior team for 2020 Olympics. I know that I need to gain bodily strength and become stronger in order to properly compete at senior level.”

One of his heroes is two-time Olympic champion, Hadi Saei.

‘It is quite a challenge to pick one in Iran because we have a lot of taekwondo heroes in the country. However, personally I would have to say Hadi Saei. I know all of his fights by heart! I especially love the video in the 2004 Olympic final where he won gold with three seconds to spare.”

Hossein is on the right track and in Saei certainly has an inspirational athlete to look up to. If he can achieve half the success of his idol there is no doubt The Grasshopper will be jumping for joy.

In the male under-48 kilogram category, Jae-hee Mok of South Korea stalked onto the mats to contest gold with Saran Tangchatkaew of Thailand. Some junior matches are genteel, low-scoring affairs. What was about to transpire, however, was a real fight.

Right after the opening bell, Mok attacked and scored to the body, going one point up and igniting cheers from his teammates. The Thai shot back with a fierce series of body shots. The tempo rose. Both lads were firing kicks with real venom. At ringside, even the most jaded "seen-it-all, done-it-all" taekwondo masters and pundits had jerked awake and were following the action, blow-by-blow.

The Korean went two up, then appeared to land a face kick - but no score. His coach challenged; it was rewarded. Tangchatkaew fell twice and the round ended 6-0 to Mok. Round two was equally fast and furious with ax kicks, spinning back kicks and punches being unleashed by both fighters, but with no score from either.

In the third, Mok went up to nine points after firing a masterly body punch-head kick combo. In defence, his constant movement - he did not stand in one place for more than a second - and constant stream of attacks was making it impossible for the Thai to lock on his target radar. With the round only half over, Mok landed a picture-perfect ax kick to Tangchatkaew's face, ending the match 12-0 and taking the gold on point difference.

It had been a bravura display of taekwondo: fast-moving, hard-hitting and deadly accurate, enabled by Mok's technical excellence and empowered by his physical conditioning.

When you meet him, however, the 17-year-old from Songnam, Gyeonggi-do - the province surrounding South Korea's capital Seoul - is almost the complete opposite of his fighting persona. Shy, quiet and self-effacing, he left his coach, Kyung-bae Lee, to do most of the talking.

"It was the first time for me to fight these athletes," Mok said. "Me and my coach studied them a lot in the preliminaries and semi-finals."

"The Thai guy was really good at the ax kick," added Lee. "We studied him, and the idea was to avoid his ax kick."

What really lit up many ringside observers was Mok's body punch-high kick combination attacks. 

"It is my favorite technique," he said. Although the punch is the lowest-scoring attack in taekwondo - to the point where some competitors neglect it almost completely - it is a specialty of his school, Pungsaeng High School. "In our school, we use a lot of punches, we focus on exact punching skill," said Lee. "If the referees see it, they don't score it – but if they hear it, they score it."

Mok's technical excellence may be down to his long apprenticeship: he has been playing taekwondo since elementary school. As well as his punch-kick combination attacks, and a wide arsenal of kicks, he has superb lateral footwork. 

He also has an ideal physique - fast and light - which explains his agility and stamina. As the icing on the cake, he has sound tactical sense, which has enabled him to take out a string of taller athletes. 

"To fight a tall person, when they raise their opposite leg, you have to attack to beat them to the kick,”" Lee explained. "Taller athletes are slower." 

In the future, Mok knows what he wants to do. "I want to major in taekwondo at university," he said. "Everybody [parents and coach] has agreed. And I want to be a coach after competing."

Still, his chosen vocation means a tough, ascetic existence that few teens would be willing to tolerate. Under Lee's tutelage, after school, he trains seven days a week. "The only time off is Sunday mornings," Lee said.

As a result Mok, unlike his contemporaries, has no time to hang out at the mall or hit the karaoke room.

"I don’t have any hobbies," he said. "In my spare time, I just like resting at home."

The path to gold in the female -46kg category was not easy. Her final fight against Rim Bayaa of Sweden was one of the most exhausting taekwondo battles this correspondent has witnessed – proof positive that the formerly sickly child has achieved an awesome level of athleticism and stamina.

Both girls erupted straight into action from the opening bell, with the Thai dominating center court and the Swede attempting to score from the perimeter. Both were firing a wide range of techniques – ax kicks, crescent kicks, rear-leg round kicks – but it was the Thai who drew first blood with a razor-sharp chopping kick to the head that pole-axed the Swede to her knees for a 3-0 lead. Charanawat’s coach requested a video replay for a round kick to the head; it was denied. After an exchange of ax kicks in the clinch, the round ended 3-1 to Charanawat.

As round two got underway, Charanawat landed another head kick, going up 7-1. Action continued with the Thai trying to drop the ax and the Swede responding with spinning back kicks. Charanawat extended her lead to 10-1. More action followed with an exchange of punches, then the Swede landed to Charanawat’s head, bringing the board to 4-10. In the third, Bayaa went onto the attack, fighting forward strongly. The Thai’s flexibility was impressive to behold as she raised her ax kick toward the ceiling again, again and again; the board when to 5-11. As the round counted down, Charanawat – finally – seemed to be tiring, relying more on counter punches more than head kicks.

With 30 seconds left and the Swede 5-11 down, Bayaa had her work cut out and launched into all-out attack. But rather than retreating tactically and waiting for the clock to deliver her medal, Charanawat gamely fought back. In the dying seconds, both fighters tumbled to the floor. After a marathon of a match, Charanwat took gold 7-11, leaving Bayaa with a well-deserved silver.

In person, Mint – her nickname is a word-play from her sister’s name – is upbeat and bubbly, sporting a boyish bob and flashing an ever-present grin.

Going back to her start in combat sports she decided not to pursue Thailand’s native martial art – the fearsome Muay Thai kickboxing – instead choosing taekwondo to upgrade her health: “Muay Thai is too rough,” she said. “Some girls do it, but not many.”

Taekwondo led her to well-being, and she discovered a natural talent. As an athlete, she considers herself “very technical and very flexible.” Her favorite technique will surprise nobody who watched her match against Bayaa: “The ax kick off both legs,” she said. “And I try to make points with the punch.” But the key to her victory was staying focused in the moment. “I really wanted to be champ, I was very excited, but I had to calm down.”

She is not happy with the current state of the game. “I don’t like this side kick, push kick, side kick,” she said, “I can’t do it, I am too small.” Her fighting inspiration is Jordan’s jump-kicking Olympic gold medalist Ahmad Abughaush. “He moves fast and has good strategy,” she said.

In the future, she plans to transition to the adult division – and to study. “I want to go to the seniors, and I want to go to Tamarsard University to study advertising,” she said. Her ambitions are to be world champion in the seniors, then go on to the Olympics. After that, she would like to run a gym.

In conclusion, she thanked the Thai association who gave her the chance to attend Burnaby, the friends that she trains with, and her family. Speaking of which: How did Mint’s parents react to her world championship win? “I don’t know.” she laughed. “I called them, but because of the time difference between Canada and Thailand, they did not pick up."

On day two of the World Taekwondo Grand Prix Final in Baku, Iran’s Sajjad Mardani took out Rio silver medalist Abdoul Issoufou of Niger in a fiercely fought semi-final battle, 7-6. That victory thrust him into the final against Russia’s Vladislav Larin.

Game on. Mardani, looking stylish and catlike from the outset, scored with a punch almost immediately. Next, he unleashed a flurry of ax kicks which Larin covered well as both lads fought to control the centre of the ring. Larin raised an ax; Mardani stuffed it by moving in and body checking. The feeling-out round ended 1-0 to the Iranian.

In round two, Larin looked more aggressive, seizing a point with a check kick to the body that shook Mardani. Mardani shot back with a punch and crescent kick to the head, then a powerful round kick to the head and a serial attack that drove Larin backward. The Iranian fans started cheering, as Mardani grabbed another point to the body.

However, the point difference was minimal. In round three, the fight could still go either way. This tense dynamic was sensed by the audience: for the first time in the evening, the crowd started roaring.

Action resumed. Mardani tried punch-round kick combinations. Larin shot back. Mardani nodded in what looked like acknowledgment of his opponent’s attacks. In fact, he had worked out his opponent’s tempo and technique. "I knew than what I needed to do," he recalled. With one minute left on the clock, Mardani was 3-1 up. The Russian looked set to go into an all-out attack, but Mardani, unfazed, checked his offensive and picked up another point after Larin fell, raising his score to 4-1. Fifteen seconds remained as Mardani moved in close, leaving Larin no space to kick.

But there was still drama to be played out.

In the last three seconds Larin attacked, Mardani backpedaled out of the area and the Russian picked up a point to take the board up to 4-2. Just two seconds remained on the clock. An appeal by the Russian coach provided a break from the action. The Russian and Iranian supporters in the crowd roared. The appeal was rejected. The fighters replaced their mouth guards, buckled on their head protectors and stepped up to the mark. The last two seconds were in play.

Larin surged forward. Mardani counter-kicked and retreated. And that was that. The battle ended 4-3, with a gold medal for the man from Tehran.

After the Olympics, the Grand Prix Final medal earned by Mardani was not just a return to victorious form, but a potent injection of new confidence. "This proved that I could do my best and that my hard work had paid off," he said. "Now, I can hold my head high."

So what happened in Rio? The much-feared Iranian trio of Mardani and teammates Farzan Ashourzadeh Fallah and Mahdi Khodabakhshi had been taekwondo’s strongest, medal favorites. When the smoke cleared, all three were empty-handed.

Asked about the drubbing Iran’s men’s squad suffered - taekwondo pundits have been discussing ever since - Mardani went quiet. "It’s a tough one," he mused. "Let me think about it." After a while he composed himself. "For sure - 100 per cent. The athletes you expect to perform the best are the ones you study more and analyse," he said. "We were the favorites, so I believe people studied us."

The stress was particularly colossal for heavyweight Mardani who fought on the last day of the competition. "I was under a ton of pressure heading into my day as the two favourites [his two team mates] had been unsuccessful," he said. "That fact that I was unable to win as well was so painful. We were in disbelief."

Since then Mardani has been on an obsessive self-improvement drive. "You have to adjust and change and adapt - the person who remains the same is not successful in any sport," he said. "I have tried to focus on changing my game."

The Grand Prix Final gold suggests his efforts have borne fruit. "I have never seen Mardani look as good as he did in Baku," said an impressed Mike McKenzie, the WTF’s TV commentator.

Now 28, Mardani started taekwondo after seeing his mother and sister practice. "As soon as I saw taekwondo, I fell in love with it," he said. As a fighter, he reckons his strengths are his non-specialised approach to the game. "I believe I am well-rounded," he said. His favorite technique is the head attack, but he does not name any specific kick. "The leg goes from here to there," he said, gesturing from earth to sky.

Asked to name his favorite fighter, his response is telling. "I like Jade Jones," he said. "She believes in herself."

Unlike some of the Iranian athletes who live, eat and breathe taekwondo, taekwondo and only taekwondo, Mardani has a side job: fashion modeling.

That should surprise absolutely nobody. As well as boasting the height of the heavyweights and the toned physique of the pro athlete, Mardani is far and away the most wickedly handsome devil in the game. "I like modeling, I like being on billboards," he said. "I love it. One day I want to go out and be a full time model."

He thought for a second, then added: "And if I get the chance to be a model, it would be a great opportunity for taekwondo, too."

For now, his own goals focus on 2020 - though he is keeping his eyes on the near term. "Obviously, the goal is Tokyo, but I am focusing on day-by-day and only looking to the next competition," he said.  

Mardani’s focus on constant improvement suggests that he might be better advised to ditch modeling and become a motivational speaker.

"My goal is to show anyone around me that hard work pays off," he said. "I want to influence the people who surround me to always believe in themselves: it does not matter how difficult life becomes, you always want to achieve more - day by day you get smarter and stronger."

Despite his relative youth, Mardani is already thinking about his heritage. "Sajjad Mardani is a human like everybody else, but I have been blessed by God with so many things," he said. "The main thing is to make an impression, and to inspire others."

Armed with this attitude, Team Iran’s Rio experience may even prove to be a long-term positive. "In sport, one person wins, one person loses. We did not perform as well as we wanted, but that’s life," Mardani said. 

"We look forward to tomorrow."

The tall, attractive 27-year-old, who hails from Gangneung on Korea’s East Coast, "followed her friends from school" to taekwondo classes at age eight. Personal tragedy struck at age 10, when her father passed away. Since then, Oh and her two sisters - Hye-ri is the middle sister - were raised by their mother.

Taekwondo, however, remained a constant. Along with the camaraderie she found in the dojang, she discovered a talent and began competing at age 14. She did not consider her skills mature enough for Beijing in 2008, but did set her sights on the next Olympics. However, in the run up to London 2012, tragedy struck again.

Given the number of players in Korea, the qualification process is a grueling one, and in pre-training, Oh suffered a deeply torn quad. "My thigh swelled up like a balloon," she recalled. Even so, she appeared on the mats two weeks after the injury - to no avail. "I had no strength, and I could not get the right angle for the kicks," she said "I wanted to go to London, but I couldn’t." A saying in Korean states that "an Olympic medal is like a gift from god" and that gift seemed a long way off in the summer of 2012 as she watched the competition on television.

Fast forward to 2015. The next Olympic cycle was in full swing when Oh, now injury-free, captured gold at the World Championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia. That augured well for Rio 2016. And indeed, pacing onto the mats in Rio’s Carioca Arena, she was one step below the summit of the pinnacle of sports: Olympic gold. But to receive that "gift from god" Oh first had to defeat Team France’s formidable Haby "The Abigator" Niare.

In the women's under-67 kilogram category, Niare was the number one seed, Oh the number six; the Korean was also at a height disadvantage. In the first round, Niare - a fighter with tremendous flexibility - landed her trademark "scorpion kick", a heel hook kick fired from impossibly close range, to the back of Oh’s head, for a three-point lead. She extended it in the second, going 4-0 up. But Oh was undaunted, and returned fire with a spin back kick, taking the board to 4-3. Then, in a too-quick-to-follow flurry of kicks, the board flashed. 

Oh went into the attack and started pressuring the taller French fighter backward. In the third, both fighters tried to feint each other out before Niare appeared to land another scorpion kick - it registered but was disallowed. A video replay appeal failure. An ax kick attack bought Niare’s score back up, before Oh added another single point - then the action mingled fast-and-furious, close-and-mess. Both athletes went for broke with the scoreboard flashing points like a pinball game, and the referee working as hard as the fighters. The final result could have gone either way, but it ended with a tight 13-12 victory for Oh.

She does not remember much about the whirlwind fight that delivered her dream. "I was losing in the first round, but I was not nervous - I was concentrating so much I did not realise the score was that high," she said. "I don’t remember too much about it."

In a development that is typical of Oh’s up-and-down fortunes, the euphoria of Olympic gold wore off back home. "Koreans did not like the way their athletes fought in Rio," she said - a reference to the tactical "new school" approach they have adopted over the more flamboyant "old school" style. "But from the athletes’ perspective, we are fighting to win, we can’t just fight to make the game exciting and lose - it does not make any sense."

The brilliance of her achievement was also over-shadowed by the high expectations Koreans have of their taekwondo fighters. "Koreans say, 'if you are Korean, you have to get gold as it is our national sport', but I wish they would look at us in a kinder way, with warm eyes and a warm heart," she said. "If we get gold, they say, 'well, you should have!’ If we don’t, they say, 'what’s wrong with you?’”

Moreover, the success of Oh and taekwondo team mate and fellow gold winner So-hui Kim were overshadowed by the achievement of Sang-young Park, who won Korean a gold in fencing. "He became so famous that none of the other athletes could keep up with his popularity," she said. "Nobody recognises me." Remarkably, she has been offered no commercial sponsorships.

The post-Rio 2016 disappointment may have been blunted by her latest competitive triumph: gold at the Grand Prix Finals in Baku, Azerbaijan, the last major event on taekwondo’s 2016 fighting calendar. Injury free, she fought a highly professional match against veteran Chinese Taipei player Chia Chia Chuang. Although she characterises her fighting style as "shut up and attack" she took on Chuang with economical motion and sound tactics.

The Korean dominated from the start, gliding smoothly in and out, feinting with her arms and taking an early lead. That was soon reversed with Chuang going up 3-1. As usual, Oh showed her quality and in the third, went onto the attack, landing two head shots to go 7-3 up. It ended 8-4 to Oh, indicating that - following her triumph at the 2015 Worlds, the 2016 Olympics and the Grand Prix Finals - that she truly is at the top of her game.

In person, Oh is more talkative, relaxed and outgoing than some of the other Korean fighters - she displays an easy-going, natural charm. Her nickname hardly suits her athletic prowess, but does match her cheerful personality - "Duck". The nickname is a play on her given name. Oh Hye-ri sounds similar to the Korean word for duck - "ori". Despite her charm, she has no boyfriend and says, vaguely, that she would like to marry and have children after retirement. In her everyday life, she escapes the stresses of taekwondo training, relaxing by reading and taking long, midnight walks along the banks of Seoul’s Han River.

She is also a beginner in the sport which, perhaps more than any other, exemplifies solitude and freedom: surfing. "Right now, I have to do it with other beginners," she said. "But when I get better, I want to do it in places where there are not too many people around."

When travelling to competitions overseas, Oh studies English on the flights, which enables her to communicate with international players - all of whom she is on excellent terms with. On the way to this interview, she was stopped in the venue by Sweden’s Elin Johansson, who Oh had beaten the previous day, to exchange selfies.

She cites Turkey’s Servet "The Cheetah" Tazegul and Korea’s Dae-hoon Lee as the most inspirational fighters on the circuit. But, in a comment that perhaps reflects her own struggles, Oh says the players she most admires are those from developing nations like Ivory Coast - those who have to suffer and endure hardships in training.

And while her first reason to take up taekwondo was friendship, the reason she keeps doing it is not for gold-medal glory, but for the joy of the sport. "It is rare for anyone to have a career that she likes, but I love taekwondo," she said. "I am lucky."

Over a day of fighting that ended with her being crowned world champion in the female under-42 kilograms category, she scythed her way through the opposition, scoring 73 points and conceding none.

Yes, you read that right: none. Not one of her five opponents throughout the day managed to score a single point on the 15-year-old from Gilan, Iran.

"I think that must be a record," said WTF Technical Committee chairman Jung Kook-hyun. "I don't think anyone else has done that before." 

"I don’t know, I can't say," added Peter Bolz, curator of website www.taekwondodata.com. "But I think that is a record."

In person, Nejad Katesari does come across as an invincible fighting machine. Quietly spoken and with a shy but ready smile, she is small in stature and lacks the towering height of some current-generation competitors. But she moves with the obvious physical grace of the athlete and has the self-assurance of the chosen.

"Taekwondo is not about height, it is about techniques and about the mind," she said. "Strength and ability are important, but on top of that, it is about hard work and trying over and over again."

She started the game at the age of four, having seen bouts on TV. Already a third dan black belt, Nejad Katesari has added her first world junior title to her roster of wins, which include two cadet championship golds - at the worlds in Muju, Korea, and at the Asians in Taipei, Taiwan, both in 2015.

When it comes to offense, she is a master of the sliding ax kick and is fully ambidextrous. But what is her brilliant defence composed of? She puts it down to her ability with the push kick as a counter-attack weapon, but is unwilling to say any more. "It’s a secret," she said, mischievously.

Fatameh Safarpour, coach of the Iranian female junior team, is more forthcoming. "She is very smart and the key reason for her success in not giving any points away is that she can work with her knees very professionally - she brings up her knees - and she has a good push kick," Safarpour said. "She is very quick and her explosive movements and flexibility help her, so that the opponent cannot react to her - she is ahead of her opponents."

Her other weapon is her mind. "I have the power of making images of the game before I fight," she said. "This is what I learned from my coach."

She also has the intense discipline necessary to juggle schooling and the demands of elite taekwondo, for as a national team member, she has to attend the grueling three-month pre-competition training camps at Tehran's famous "Taekwondo House". 

"When I am not in camp, I go to school, and in the evenings I go to taekwondo practice sessions," she said.

"When I am in the camps I focus on taekwondo, and when I get back home, I get personal tutors to help me catch up with other students."

She is not happy with the current rule-set. "Since the single touch with the sole of the foot has come in, most of the athletes use it and taekwondo does not have any beauty any more as they don't use the more technical moves," she said.

However, she is positive about recent developments with the PSS. "I believe that the electronic headgear is very helpful as you are sure that the foot has impacted the headgear," she said. "In the traditional way, sometimes the referee might press the key without an impact." 

Given her recent string of victories, she is 100 per cent sure of what her life path should be. "I am going to major in taekwondo in university and take it as my occupation for life," she said. "I recently made that decision as, after I had achievements, I believed I could do this, it was motivating."

The decision to make taekwondo her life was completely her own, but her parents both encouraged and supported her, Nejad Katesari said. Naturally, they were "super happy" when she called them after her victory in Burnaby. 

As for influences in the sport, she cites her coach back home in Gilan, Neda Rastad. "She was my coach from the age of four," Nejad Katasari said. "She gives me positive energy and high spirits." Another is her taekwondo senior Kimia Alizadeh Zenoorin - who, in Rio, became the first Iranian female athlete ever to win an Olympic medal and has since won fame across Iran.

"I know her personally," she said. "She gave high motivation to all Iranian girls, so now they believe that if they try hard, they can have great achievements, like her."

In the future, destiny awaits. Nejad Katesari's ambitions are not lowly: she aims to be both an Olympic champion and a national team coach. "I am happy that as a Muslim girl my hijab did not create any limitations," she said. And of course, that destiny can build on the foundation of a very impressive recent record. "By winning 75 points in five games without losing any, I could make history," she said. 

The final buzzer rang on the bronze medal match in the women’s -57kg category and an 18-year-old athlete from Karaj, Iran, had done something that had never been done before: Kimia Alizadeh Zenoorin was the first female Iranian athlete to win an Olympic medal - not just in taekwondo, but in any discipline.

Taking on Sweden’s Nikita Glasnovic, the Iranian asserted her dominance early and extended it with a head kick that drew roars from the crowd. The Swede, despite firing off countless kicks, was unable to find the range and Alizadeh Zenoorin - after a final- seconds countdown from the crowd - won with rare conviction. She ended it by falling forward and kissing the field of play, then embracing her coach and taking photos with the crowd.

“I am very pleased to get this first medal -v ery pleased! - and very pleased for the girls of Iran,” said Alizadeh Zenoorin, speaking one day after her fight. “I had tears in my eyes from joy, but I also had a little thought: ‘I would love this to have been gold.’”

Even so, the colour of her medal is overshadowed by the enormity of her achievement.

“When I came here I wanted to break this enclosure, open the door, help other female athletes and also create a kind of self-confidence for people to go out there and do it,” she said.

In that sense, Rio is definitely “mission accomplished.”

On the personal front Alizadeh Zenoorin’s bronze medal victory is going to be a life-changing event, for she embodies the sportive empowerment of Iranian women. “Obviously, now my life is going to change in that I have to be a role model,” she mused. “It will be hard for me and my social life will change but I hope to be a good representative and a good person in society for people to follow.”

Her country has fully recognised the significance of what has happened. Iranian media are full of her pictures; her photo portrait has been emblazoned across a giant poster decorating a central Tehran overpass; actors and celebrities are lining up to congratulate her when she lands; there are even clips up on social media of inspired Iranian grandmothers performing zany taekwondo moves.

“Surely all the public in Iran are very pleased and happy to see my achievement,” she said “There is no restriction for female activities in [Iranian] sport and I hope from now on there will be lots of medals to follow.”

Her coach, Mahroo Komrani Najaf Abadi, reckons her protégé has kicked down the last barrier for female sport in Iran. “I want everybody to know that in Iran we all love and enjoy sport the same way men do, it is the same for women and men,” she said. “The only difference between rest of world and Iran is the boys train with male instructors and the girls train with female instructors.”

Alizadeh Zenoorin’s unexpected triumph - she was the Olympic tenth seed and her world ranking is 21st in a tough category that includes such high-profile stars a Team GB’s Jade Jones, Spain’s Eva Calvo Gomez and Egypt’s Hedaya Wahba - may mitigate the disaster that befell the Iranian men. Iran is a taekwondo superpower and the team it fielded in Rio was best-of-breed. But from day one, it all fell apart.

Farzan “The Tsunami” Ashourzadeh Fallah, the number-one seed and the favorite to win the -58kg went out in his very first match. Mahdi “The Terminator” Khobabakhshi was the number-one seed and the favorite to win the -80kg: he went out in his second match. Sajjad Mardani, the number-two seed and a strong medal possibility in the men +80kg also went down in his second fight. The Rio results indicate that the rest of the world has finally worked out how to beat the Iranian powerhouses.

Those matches must have been hard for Alizadeh Zenoorin to watch. And her own preparation for Rio was agonising. “Obviously, it was hard to come here and I had a lot of stress,” she said. “I lost 10 kilos to be ready for this competition” (Given that Alizadeh Zenoorin fights in the -57kg category, the extreme nature of that weight loss may be appreciated). Still, the reward has been worthwhile. “I worked hard to get a medal. I thank God for this opportunity and I hope to be a good role model,” she said.

At home, she is a student who, between classes and taekwondo sessions, enjoys hiking and climbing. In the future, she plans to finish her university degree in physiotherapy, become a physio, and teach taekwondo.

But given that she is aged just 18, there is more immediate business awaiting her on competition mats worldwide.

“She is very clever, she has a lot of patience and she is also, in my opinion, one of the best players in the world in taekwondo,” said her coach, Mahroo Komrani Najaf Abadi. “Kimia has beaten [Rio gold medalist] Jade Jones twice. (Indeed, on the sidelines of the competition mats, one taekwondo pundit opined that it was fortunate for Great Britain that the team’s golden athlete was not drawn against Alizadeh Zenoorin in the preliminaries).

“I would love to have faced her in the finals, I have competed against her four times and beaten her twice,” Alizadeh Zenoorin added. “A lot of people in my weight I have competed against and beaten, I have beaten others before who are here - but unfortunately, I could not do it this time.”

She cites Iranian taekwondo legend Hadi Saei, Team Korea bronze medalist Dae-hoon Lee and Team China double Olympic gold medalist Jingyu Wu as her inspirations in the sport. With her height - she is a good head taller than Jones - and her weaponry - her round kick to the body is a consistent scoring technique - she has all the right physical qualities to win more medals.

“When I arrive in Iran, I want to rest to heal my injuries, then work hard to change the colour of the medal I have now,” she said.

“I took taekwondo up when I was nine as I was very weak and ill - I took it up for my health,” said Kim. “My parents suggested starting it, and now I am all good.”

“All good” is an understatement: Kim has today cast off her weakling status and has transformed into an elite athlete competing and winning at the highest level of taekwondo. The 22-year old, who grew up in the countryside in Chuncheon before migrating to Seoul for high school, captured the ultimate medal in sport at the Carioca Arena 3 in Rio’s Barra Olympic Park, when she won gold in the women’s -49kg category.

But it was no easy match.

Kim, the seventh seed in the women’s -49kg category, would be fighting against eighth-seeded Tijana Bogdanovic who had the height (and probably strength) advantage. Earlier in the day, the Serbian had stunned the taekwondo world by comprehensively defeating arguably the most dominant fighter in the sport, China’s double Olympic gold medalist Jingyu Wu, 17-7; Wu had been gunning for what would have been a record third Olympic taekwondo gold. “I was not nervous to face Bogdanovic, I was worried about Wu,” said Kim. “I expected to fight with Wu at the final, I had prepared a lot for Wu.”

The fact that Bogdanovic had ejected Wu made very clear that Kim was facing a well-prepared, top-drawer opponent.

From the outset, the Serbian, with her height advantage, fought forward, forcing Kim to dance around the edge of the mats. But it was the Korean who was more accurate with her legs, winning the first round 2-1. The second continued the same way, with Kim displaying lively footwork to escape the Serbian’s attack. Bogdanovic, trying to land a punch, took a crescent kick to the head; the round ended 5-2. In the third, the score was 6-4 to the Korean but Bogdanovic put the pressure on, and Kim visited the mats repeatedly. In the last 11 seconds, Bogdanovic was chasing her target around the field of play but Kim held off the desperate last-minute attack, taking the match and gold medal, 7-6.

After the match she said she had “prayed to become a champion” and gave thanks to her family and nation for the support she had received.

Although it had been a close-run thing - Kim’s fall just as the final buzzer rang could have cost her the match - the fight had gone according to plan. “The Serbian girl is good at face kicks so I was concerned about that,” Kim said. “I thought that if I could beat her face kick, it would break her mentality. The back step and footwork was the plan.”

Oddly, the manner of her victory came in for a fair amount of online criticism in Korea, with some critiquing her style and strategy. In fact, Kim’s evasive, counter-attacking game plan showcased true mastery of lateral footwork and fighting off of the back leg - which causes one to question the technical knowledge of her armchair critics.

Olympic gold is just the latest in the fourth-dan’s list of accomplishments, which include gold at the 2015 Grand Prix tournament in Moscow, and gold in the -46kg category at the 2013 World Championships in Puebla, Mexico. As a taekwondo fighter she reels of her list of advantages. “Moving fast, I play a timing game and strike at the right time,” she said. “I like the back kick best of all - it is a special kick and I can fire it from both legs.”

Expect to see more of Kim in the future: Given her tender age, she has a long fighting career stretching ahead of her. “I always challenge the next one,” she said. “I want to go to Tokyo 2020 if possible.”

The people who got their formerly sickly daughter into the sport were at ringside for her triumph. “My parents were in Rio, and they were in tears, especially my mom,” she said.

But what about her own emotions? How did it feel to capture the ultimate prize?

“I’d always dreamt of being an Olympic gold medalist,” she said. “I realised the dream.”

Although he was sidelined by injury and did not make the recent Mexico City Grand Prix Final, the Iranian has won his nation a spot in Rio 2016 with flying colors. He is the number-one ranked player in the men’s under 80kg division - arguably, the fiercest competitive category in the game. He is the current world champion, the 2014 Asian Games champion and holds three Grand Prix gold medals.

His nickname is “The Terminator” but his surname may be even more appropriate to his phenomenal talent:  in Farsi, “Khodabakhshi” means “God Given.”

If that talent was granted by God, it was incubated by his father. The 24-year-old started taekwondo under the tutelage of Khodabakhshi Sr. at the age of four - or, as he puts it himself, “since I grew arms and legs!”  It was no easy regimen: “I did not like taekwondo, but my father forced me to do it,” he said. “My whole family practice; my sister is an instructor; my uncles are instructors.”

Now a fourth dan, he has been a staple on the formidable Iranian men’s team for four years and may well be its most valuable property.

The match which planted him firmly on the map was his battle against Aaron Cook in the Manchester Grand Prix Final in 2013. At the time Cook, then fighting for the Isle of Man, was both the number one in the category and a massive and perennial crowd favorite. “It was very interesting, my first time to fight Aaron,” Khodabakhshi recalled. “The whole audience was behind Aaron, and that made me even more motivated to win.”

The Iranian picked off points for an early lead. Cook, however, never says die, and in the third round he surged out like a typhoon, lunging across the mats in a barrage of no-holds-barred assaults, launching combination round kicks and spin kicks. The Iranian kept his cool and fought to keep Cook at distance. “I needed very single point I could get,” Khodabakhshi said. “It was one of the best fights ever.” The final score: 13-11 to the Iranian.

If there is a perfect physique for taekwondo, Khodabakhshi owns it. He is tall, lean and long-limbed.

Although he possesses a weapons-grade front leg, his favourite technique is the jump spinning round kick, unleashed against either body or face. Fighting from a wide, side-on stance, using his hands to feint and employing a dance-like torso movement, he looks confident, dangerous and stylish.

Naturally, he is a crowd pleaser. “I want my audience to enjoy my games,” he said, “But my movement is not intentional - when I watch myself I think, ‘What the hell was I doing?’ I have no idea!”

He credits rigorous training for the development of his killer front leg: “I believe my legs and my backside are my strengths,” he said. “Because of the new system, we have to work hard on front-leg kicks, and that has made my legs very strong.”

The modern game, however, requires more than just physical attributes. “I am very analytical,” he said. “Every person I am going to fight, I analyse.”

But nobody is indestructible - a lesson Khodabakhshi learned in October.  A firm favorite for gold at the 2015 Manchester Grand Prix Series 3, he went onto the mats against Britain's Lutalo Muhammad in the quarter-finals.  The audience, excited to see “The Terminator” take on the home-town boy, went quiet after Khodabakhshi lurched. Clearly, something bad had happened. The Iranian struggled - against obvious agony - to continue, before the fight was halted: He had suffered a severe angle sprain.

Recovery has been slow. In order to make the weight for the GP Series 2 in Samsun, Turkey and Series 3 in Manchester, UK, “I got weaker and lowered my immune system,” Khodabakhshi said. That explains his very conspicuous absence from the Grand Prix Final in Mexico City. However, he expects to be back to full fighting fitness by the year-end.

His success on the mats in the 2014 and 2015 seasons - not to mention his reputation as the man to beat - indicate that his conditioning, technique, tactics and training are best-of-breed. But in the months leading up to the Rio Olympics, he plans to radically overhaul his game. “I believe that I am being watched and analysed by other players, and I don’t want them to read my hand,” he said. “I am going to show you a different Mahdi there.”

The lithe moves and athletic physique that make him so dangerous on the fighting circuit, combined with his good looks, also make him dangerous with the ladies. Asked if he has a girl friend he joked, “About a thousand!” Then he quickly corrected himself. “I don’t break hearts!” he insisted. “If anyone likes me - send me a message!”

When not engaged in the gruelling training programme of the Iranian taekwondo athletes, he enjoys volleyball and travel. Taekwondo has provided a passport to the world. Spain has been his favorite destination thus far. He also likes cars. He drives a Hyundai, but hopes to own a Maserati. Is that feasible on his current salary as an athlete? “No!” he says - but it may be, “… in a few years, when I have managed to make money out of my titles.”

As a child, he hated taekwondo. Now as a man, he finds it compelling. “Although I was forced to start taekwondo from a young age, as I got older, I learned more about the art,” he said. “The more it became a profession for me, the more I found it interesting.”

Even so, “The Terminator” may hang up his dobok after the 2016 Games.

“I plan to get a gold in the Olympics – I will deliver my best-ever performance! - and then I am not sure if I want to carry on,” he said. “I am under a lot of pressure and stress which affects my personal life. I want to have some sort of calm.”

After what happened in Manchester, there will no more pressure from his taekwondo-centric family.

“My family is very proud and happy as I am successful, but they care about my well-being more than my achievements in taekwondo,” he said. “Since I got injured, they have given up on forcing me to do taekwondo after Rio.”

An instinctive fighter with a unique "jump reverse turning kick", Gbagbi was praised before Tokyo 2020 by Philippe Bouedo, a hugely experienced taekwondo fighter, coach and official who was World Taekwondo's technical delegate at the Games. 

"Ruth is very powerful and very creative," he told World Taekwondo. "She has a full palette of techniques."

Gbagbi's own estimation of her abilities was more basic. "I am a fighter," she said. "The more difficult it is, the more I like it."

Her Olympic bronze in Rio came on the same evening that her team-mate Cheick Sallah Cissé earned gold in the men's 80 kilograms thanks to a last second kick to the head in his final against Britain's Lutalo Muhummad.

Gbagbi's place on the women's Olympic 67 kilograms rostrum was assured by her defeat of Azerbaijan's Farida Azizova.

The feisty fighter then contributed her own global gold to Africa as she won the world title the following year in Muju in South Korea, defeating Iran's Kimia Alizadeh Zenoorin 19-9 in the final.

"She is the perfect aspect of taekwondo - we want to show people how exciting the game is," Bouedo added to World Taekwondo.

"In championships, some players minimise risk, but not Gbagbi. She has no limits."

Gbagbi has been practicing taekwondo since she was eight.

"When I was young, I liked to fight in the streets," she recalled. "So my mum told me to try taekwondo and now I'm a world champion. She's very proud of me."

Gbagbi's second Olympic medal in Tokyo was earned through a 12-8 win over Brazi's Milena Titoneli, after she had been beaten 24-18 in the semi-final by Britain's eventual silver medallist Lauren Williams.

There were further honours for her in 2021 as she was named as an ambassador for the culture of peace by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The Ivorian was honoured alongside 10 compatriots at an event in Abidjan.

UNESCO ambassadors are tasked with using their talent and fame to promote the organisation and its goals.

Gbagbi described her appointment as an "honour" on her Instagram account.

More recently she has been back to the peak of her form, as she demonstrated on September 3, 2022 by winning women's under-67kg gold at the Paris World Taekwondo Grand Prix.

Victory in the final against up-and-coming South Korean Min-Seo Nam came after another of her spinning kicks had seized the initiative. It secured the fourth Grand Prix gold of her career.

"It was a dream come true to win another Grand Prix gold medal," she said.

"The level of all the athletes keeps going up and the young athletes are very fierce.

"I think the taekwondo fight has changed a lot in the last ten years.

"But I like this because in life all things change.

"So I need to adapt if I want to keep fighting."

Gbagbi is already a national heroine, but there is one medal that has eluded her - Olympic gold. Not satisfied with her two bronze medals from Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, she has Paris 2024 in her sights.

"I hope," she said. "I will give my all to go to Paris 2024 and win gold."

But one stop down the list brings us to Tunisia's third most profitable sport in Olympic medal terms - taekwondo. The martial art has contributed medals at both the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Games.

Oussama Oueslati was the breakthrough taewondo athlete for Tunisia in Brazil, earning bronze in the men's under-80 kilograms welterweight event.

In the Japanese capital, Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi moved one step higher on the podium as he earned silver in the men's under-58kg flyweight category.

Jendoubi's Tokyo 2020 success had been prefigured in 2018 when he won bronze at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, losing 14-10 in his semi-final against the Russian Olympic Committee's (ROC) Dmitrii Shishko.

The following year, his first at senior level, saw Jendoubi earn the African Games title in Rabat with a 47-10 win in his men's under-54kg final against Moaz Azat of Egypt.

After returning to Rabat in 2020 to secure Olympic qualification, Jendoubi warmed up for his Tokyo 2020 test by winning the African senior title in Dakar, beating Omar Lakehal of Morocco 18-15 in the final.

At the Tokyo 2020 Games victories over Mikhail Artamonov of the ROC and Jun Jang of South Korea earned the then 19-year-old a place in the final.

There he was narrowly beaten 16-12 by Italy's Vito Dell’Aquila.

Jendoubi maintained his high level of consistency in June 2021, when he reached the final of the World Taekwondo Grand Prix at the Foro Italico in Rome, the first event of its kind to have been held since 2019 because of the pandemic.

The athlete from Cairo has been a standard bearer for Egyptian taekwondo for more than a decade, having taken up the sport aged six.

She made her senior international mark as an 18-year-old by winning the women's under-57 kilograms title at the 2011 African Games in Maputo, and went on to win the African Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

The following year she warmed up for the London 2012 Olympics by taking silver at the US and Dutch Open events, as well as golds at the Spanish Open and World Student Championships.

At London 2012, the then 19-year-old reached the quarter-finals, losing 8-6 to France's sixth seed Marlene Harnois.

The year 2015 proved highly successful for her as she won gold at the Military World Games in Mungyeong and took silver at the African Games in Brazzaville.

She also earned gold in the 2015 Grand Prix final in Mexico City.

She went into the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on the back of a morale-boosting victory at the African Championships.

At that point she was third in the World Taekwondo rankings, and she lived up to her billing in Brazil.

Having reached the semi-finals via a sudden-death victory over Japan's sixth seed Mayu Hamada, Malak missed out on reaching the final in similar excruciating fashion, losing 1-0 on sudden-death to Spain's Eva Calvo, who went on to take silver after losing to Britain's Jade Jones.

But Malak earned tangible reward for her talents by beating Belgium's Raheleh Asemani in her bronze-medal match - again 1-0 on sudden-death.

By the time she reached the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Malak had moved up the to under-67kg welterweight category, and there she lost 13-12 in the quarter-finals to Britain's eventual silver medallist Lauren Williams.

Once again, however, Malak found the way to the Olympic podium as she won a repechage against Tonga's Malia Paseka. She then earned a 17-6 victory in her bronze medal match against Paige McPherson of the United States.

Egypt's other Olympic taekwondo medals - also bronze - came in the men's under-58kg class at the Athens 2004 Games through Tamer Bayoumi, and in the men's under-80kg class at Tokyo 2020 through Seif Eissa.

Hakizimana, a Burundian refugee living in Rwanda, was one of six athletes named in the team in different events.

As long as he is reclassified in time, he is set to compete in the men's under-61-kilograms division when taekwondo makes its Paralympic debut at Tokyo 2020.

Until a few months ago, Hakizimana was based in the Mahama Refugee Camp, the biggest in Rwanda with more than 50,000 refugees. More recently, he has been training in the Rwandan capital Kigali.

At the camp, Hakizimana organised a taekwondo school and has trained more than 1,000 refugee children.

He has also prepared himself for elite competitions.

He competed in the 2017 African Open Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, where he won his first match before losing 18-12 to the top-seeded, three-time world champion Aythami Santana of Spain in the under-61 kilograms K44 division quarter-final.

Hakizimana's participation in Tokyo is contingent on his reclassification by August 1. As a refugee, it has been hard to receive the necessary visas to travel to tournaments, making classification challenging.

World Taekwondo has confirmed that he will be reclassified before the deadline.

"We are thrilled with the announcement that Burundian refugee Parfait Hakizimana will be representing the Refugee Team at the Tokyo Paralympic Games this summer," said World Taekwondo President Chungwon Choue, who also chairs the THF Board, said.

"Few athletes have had to overcome the conditions of Mr. Hakizimana, who until recently lived, taught, and trained in Rwanda's Mahama Refugee Camp."

Hakizimana started a taekwondo school at the camp and is credited with having trained more than 1,000 refugee children.

While living in a camp for internally displaced people in 1996, because of the Burundian Civil War, he lost his mother and received an injury that left his arm permanently debilitated when he was eight.

Fearing for his life, he later left the country permanently when unrest in Burundi flared up again in 2015.

"Refugees don't have a lot," he told the UNHCR. "But sport helps them forget their troubles."

The Refugee Paralympic Team represents more than 82 million people worldwide, who have been forced to flee war, persecution, and human rights abuses. Twelve million of them live with a disability.

Choue noted the work of the THF, which was created by World Taekwondo in 2016. The Foundation has supported Hakizimana and he is now a THF coach. 

"World Taekwondo remains committed to empowering refugees through taekwondo, which is why we started the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation in the first place," he said. "Many refugees around the world, including those based in refugee camps like Mr. Hakizimana, have benefited from its support."

Dr. Choue also thanked the different groups that helped Hakizimana along the way.

"We congratulate Mr. Hakizimana on his achievement and would like to acknowledge the work put in by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), World Taekwondo, the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation and the Rwandan Taekwondo Federation," he said. 

"And we wish Parfait the best of luck as he pursues his Paralympic dream in Tokyo this summer." 

For all he may yet achieve in taekwondo, it is hard to imagine he will ever become better known for anything other than his astonishing gold medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics - not just a last-minute win, but a last-second win.

Britain’s Lutalo Muhammad was ahead for the entirety of the men’s under-80kg final - until that last second, when Cissé produced an inspired spinning heel kick that brushed his opponent’s face and dashed the gold from his grasp.

"I realised that, in one second, everything can change," he told World Taekwondo. "I was so happy, because I had achieved my dream."

Cissé had benefited in ideal fashion from his own huge effort in the 2015 World Taekwondo Grand Prix Final in Mexico City, when despite losing 16-10 in an all-action meeting with fellow battler Aaron Cook of Moldova, he did enough to earn the Ivory Coast a quota place for Rio.

It was one of the most dramatic moments not just in taekwondo Olympic history, but Olympic history.

Cissé returned home to the Ivory Coast a hero. As the recipient of the first Olympic gold medal ever won by an Ivoirian, he and team mate Ruth Gbagbi - who won bronze in Rio - were greeted by the President and toured the country.

Subsequently, the two upgraded their training environment, relocating from steamy West Africa to the dojang of Spanish master coach Juan Antonio Ramos on the idyllic Mediterranean island of Majorca.

Before the Rio Games, Cissé - who put his studies in electrical engineering on hold to prepare - had undergone a fearsomely busy 2015, and his ambition for 2016 was simple: "I am going to rest as I had to give a lot of fights this year - too many," he said.

His dream at the time? "Olympic gold."

Having achieved the sport’s highest honour, the temptation may have been there to take things easy once again.

"It is very difficult for Olympic champions to get motivated," said World Taekwondo Technical Committee vice -chairman Philippe Bouedo. "After the Olympics, you get media interest and sponsor interest, but then you have to come back to the venues, back to the training."

At the first major post-Rio event, the 2017 World Championships in Muju in South Korea, Cissé won nothing. In the first Grand Prix of the season in Russian capital Moscow, he managed bronze. Then he shifted gear and took three golds, the last of them after an epic battle in the World Taekwondo Grand Prix Final hosted in his native Abidjan, when he defeated Russia’s Maksim Khramtcov 33-28.

In oppressive evening heat, to the roar of the crowd, backed by local drummers, the 24-year-old from Bouake contributed to one of the sport’s greatest fights against his technically assured opponent.

It left the World Taekwondo President, Chungwon Choue, shaking his head in bemusement and exclaiming: "The most exciting game!"

Afterwards, the impulsive Cissé, national flag in hand, grabbed his first master and raced into the VIP stand to pay respects to the assembled World Taekwondo executives and local politicians.

"Before coming here I already had it in my mind to give homage to my master if I won," he admitted. "Lucien Christian Kragbe was my first master - and was not only my master, he helped me very much. He is like my father."

A sliver medal came in 2018 at the African Championships and the Grand Prix final in Fujairah, where he lost 9-6 to Norway’s Richard Ordemann.

The following year - the last in which he has been able to involve himself in top-class competition - Cissé won the African Games title with a 38-35 win over Achraf Mahboubi of Morocco.

Asked to describe himself, Cissé says, "I am a warrior! My physical style is strong, and I am a 360-degree fighter."

For all his bravado, Cissé has a thoughtful side. "I am now well known in my country and in Africa, and maybe the world," he mused. "I am like an ambassador of Africa, so I set an example." 

This can be challenging, he confesses. "I am only 24, and I cannot do all the things that people of my age do… I have to try and think and act like a great personality."

Harking back to Rio, he added: "When you go to the Olympics, you don’t go for you, you go for your country, for your continent. I wanted Africa to be proud of me."

Six years on, aged 22, he has put himself in position to seek a senior Olympic medal at the postponed Tokyo 2020 Games.

Since taekwondo became a full Olympic discipline at Sydney 2000, Egypt has won two medals. Tamer Bayoumi secured bronze in the men's under-58 kilograms flyweight class at the Athens Games in 2004, and at the Rio 2016 Games, Hedaya Malak Wahba also took bronze in the featherweight under-57kg category that was won by Britain's Jade Jones.

In February of this year, Eissa earned the opportunity of adding to his country's collection of Olympic medals when he won one of the two Tokyo places on offer in the men's under-80kg class at the 2020 African Taekwondo Olympic Qualification Tournament in Rabat.

His opponent in the decisive contest, Firas Katousi, had edged a decision over him after a scoreless men’s under-74kg final at the African Games, held in the same Moroccan venue, and had also beaten him 9-8 at the 2019 World Championships in Manchester. 

So, Eissa's 3-1 victory would have had a special personal resonance.

The Egyptian – who won his first African Games silver back in 2015 – had prepared himself for his Olympic trial with a highly successful 2019 season.

His African Games silver was preceded by winning a medal of the same colour at the Summer Universiade in Naples, where he lost 6-4 in the men's under-80kg final to South Korea's Minwoo Kang.

On the main tour his season had opened with victories at the Luxembourg and Australia Open events, and his post-Rabat momentum continued as he took a silver medal at the Sofia Grand Prix, losing 12-10 in the final to Saleh El Sharabaty of Jordan.

Another silver medal was his at his next competition, the Military World Games in Wuhan, where he lost 11-7 in the final to Maksim Khramtcov.

The Russian then beat him in the Grand Prix final semi-final in Moscow en-route to becoming a home gold medallist, with Eissa just missing out on bronze after losing the match-off against Uzbekistan’s Nikita Rafalovich.

That frustration would soon be followed by the satisfaction of earning an Olympic place and the challenge of adding to Egypt's proud record at the Games.

When he marched into the stadium as his nation’s standard bearer during the Olympic Opening ceremony, bare-breasted, muscular and glistening, women around the world swooned, men invested in gym memberships and body oil and the Internet went wild, making the Tongan taekwondo fighter the first (and arguably the biggest) viral hit of Rio 2016.

What does he make of his overnight success?

“It was not overnight!,” said the smiling 32-year-old who, though of Tongan birth, lives and works in Brisbane, Australia. “This was 20 years of taekwondo discipline to get me to this point! This point was just the tip of the iceberg!”

Even so, the constant stream of media attention has been a surprise.

“We thought, ‘Oh, it will settle down and I will have time to focus on training,’ but it just got bigger!,” he said during an interview with WTF Communications in the athlete warm-up area of Carioca Arena 3, in Rio’s Barra Olympic Park. “We have had media from all over the world: From Argentina, Brazil, Korea, China, Australia, America….”

Indeed. During and after the Opening Ceremony, there were 45 million hits on Google asking “Where is Tonga?” and “What Sport Does Taufatofua Do?” He has since been featured in the Washington Post, TIME magazine, Entertainment Weekly, the Wall Street Journal and a host of other media that are virgin territory for taekwondo fighters. Some 100 million viewers tuned in during his appearance on “The Today Show,” and George Bush’s daughter was filmed oiling him up. (“Who’s the superpower now?,” he jokes) Finally, his (again, topless) appearance at the Olympic Closing Ceremony generated a second wave of hysteria.

In short, he has been given an opportunity - and it is one that he intends to take full advantage of. “It is important for me to get Tonga out to the world,” he said. “And to get taekwondo out to the world, as well.” In fact, his nickname is “The Real Tongan Ninja.” “There was an old movie called ‘The Tongan Ninja,’” he explained. “So people started to say, ‘We need to call him, The Real Tongan Ninja.’”

While he is understandably reluctant to discuss any of the commercial sponsorship opportunities that have suddenly become available, he knows that the money could be a game changer for his cash-strapped region. “We have been self-funded for years,” he said. “It has been tough, a very tough time for us.”

His Olympic baptism of fire was tough, too, as his +80kg fight pitted him against Iranian top gun Sajjad Mardani. It proved a one-sided war. While Taufatofua was game, and showcased a wide range of techniques, Mardani delivered a stern lesson, taking the match 16-1.

“I did not realise how quick his front leg was - I did not think it would reach me, my distance was off,” the Tongan mused, post-fight. “But we fought, we shook hands, we gave the crowd a show and the crowd was happy - at my expense!

“That is the taekwondo we have to take to the world!”

The experience gulf between Mardani, a frequent fixture on the international circuit and world ranked number three, and Taufatofua, world ranked number 157, was as wide as the geographical gulf between Iran and the Pacific Island nation: It was only the Tongan’s third fight in three years.

“I have not fought anyone on that level that I can remember, I don’t have world ranking points as I could not afford to go to the European Opens or the Grand Prix,” he said. “But I feel I have enough tools if I could grow them. And we have shown the world that Tonga is a small nation, but big-hearted.”

The commercial opportunities which his sudden fame have generated could help transform the underfunded state of Oceania taekwondo - which failed to win any medals in Rio. “We can really bring up the next generation of athletes and get funding for the Pacific, this is a big thing for us,” he said. “We are a small country, but now we have a big voice.”

And it is an educated voice - Taufatofua is no muscle head. Professionally, he is a counsellor for homeless youth, a job in which his strong Christian faith and his taekwondo training - training he has been engaged in since he was five years old - provide a powerful foundation. “I use the discipline of taekwondo to help people,” he said. “I work full time, I train full time and I study full time.”

Even so, as the new poster athlete for taekwondo as a form of physical conditioning, he has strong views on health and fitness, insisting that functional strength is more important than aesthetic looks.

His power workout consists of plyometric routines, kettlebell routines, functional weight training and cable/pulley exercises. For cardio, he does wind sprints on the incline treadmill: 10-15 second sprints, then 30 seconds break. And for flexibility, he stretches twice a day, both the front and rear lines of the body.

Where does taekwondo slot into the fitness matrix? “Martial arts is fundamental, it offers a couple of things which normal bodybuilding does not,” he said. “It changes your mind as well as your body; it makes you stronger mentally, then your body follows.”

The chief reason people fail to attain physical fitness, he believes, is their inability to persevere. “People give up way too easily, they look for the quick-and-easy method,” he opined. “The reality is that you have to go through the valley to reach the mountain.”

Another problem is the temptations of modern life. “I feel men give up a little bit too early,” he said. “They are at this point where it is too hard, it is easier to eat crap food and drink crap drinks.”

The results of “The Real Tongan Ninja’s” dedication are built into the physique he showcased to the world, drenched in baby oil. “Not baby oil,” he insisted. “Coconut oil!”

So what made him decide to go out bare-breasted, instead of in a conventional blazer and slacks?

Was it male pride? Or perhaps the egotism of the elite athlete?

He turns serious. “As opposed to the Western influence, the blazer, we wanted to go out wearing what our ancestors wore into battle 200 years ago,” he said.

Spoken like a warrior.

For home followers, Javad Aghayev will carry hopes of success after the unheralded fighter earned unexpected bronze in the men's featherweight under 68 kilograms category at last year's edition of the flagship event in Guadalajara, Mexico.

After beating Thailand's Chaichon Cho and Poland's Mateusz Szczesnowski to reach the round-of-32, the unseeded fighter found himself facing the formidable challenge of Uzbekistan's Tokyo 2020 champion Ulugbek Rashitov.

Aghayev proved the superior athlete over three rounds against his illustrious fellow 20-year-old and moved into a quarter-final against Jordan's Zaid Mustafa which he won with a final round score of 5-3.

That took him into a semi-final that also went to three rounds and saw Kwon Do-yun, the South Korean who would go on to win gold, advance after three rounds.

But bronze was a triumph for the young fighter who entered senior competition in 2019, the year after competing at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires.

He showed his potential by moving straight into winning mode, taking the Dutch Open and Belgian Open titles before competing at the World Championships in Manchester.

His preparation for the next World Championships to be held, in 2022, was aided by a strong performance in the preceding event, the European Under-21 Championships at Tirana, where he won silver.

But taking a step onto the podium in a senior global competition was another matter. 

Aghayev showed he was ready to thrive in that class of contest, however, which will make his participation in the upcoming home Worlds in Baku a fascinating prospect.

In November 1991, at the World Taekwondo Championships in Athens, Omar's father Gergely, then also 19, had won gold in the same category.

The psychological odds were stacked against Salim in the Mexican city of Guadalajara this year as he was matched, in a noisy and partisan arena, against local hero Cesar Rodriguez - renowned for his fighting spirit, determination and dynamic kicking technique.

What may have helped Salim was the fact that Rodriguez had reached the final after a huge battle with South Korea's Jun-seo Bae.

Salim, on the other hand, had had an easier semi-final victory against Po-yen Chen of Chinese Taipei.

Salim opened the final with one of his own specialities, a scoring punch, and led 14-3 after the first round.

In the second, Salim began to display his own kicking prowess to good effect, putting Rodriguez onto the back foot.

Comfortably ahead on the board, Salim spent the last seconds back-pedalling - and was penalised for it - but ended as an 11-9 winner.

During the bout itself, Omar told World Taekwondo, he blanked out the thought of following in his father’s footsteps. 

But he added: "It is something I had thought about all my life - that it would be amazing to replicate it."

Meanwhile Gergely, who is also his son's coach, commented: "We never talked about it. But now we talk about it!"

The Guadalajara gold was sweet indeed for the Salim family - but their joy was edged with sorrow.

"The person that got the whole family into taekwondo was my brother, who passed away this year," Gergely said. 

"There was so much heartache and now we have got something so positive, it melts my heart, it is indescribable - Omar’s biggest fan was my brother."

Salim has been practising taekwondo for 17 of his 19 years.

"The brain develops differently when you start young," said his father. 

"He was in diapers kicking bags at two."

That long apprenticeship in the art has produced a dynamic and ambidextrous fighter with deeply embedded fundamentals, a wide range of kicks and a consistent scoring punch.

"I have experienced other coaching, but there is nothing like being coached by family, let alone by my own father," Omar said. 

"I am so used to him being in my corner, I would not change a thing."

Even so, Salim's father admits he would not mind disengaging and watching the play from a distance. 

"Sometimes, I wish I could sit in the stands with a drink and popcorn and enjoy from there," he said.

As the competitive focus begins to shift more firmly towards the Paris 2024 Olympics, both father and son are remaining calm and collected.

"We take it one step at a time," Omar said.

"It was very important to get this win, it’s a lot of points, but now we are moving on to the next competition. 

"I don’t want to force the agenda."

"I don’t think it helps to look at such a big picture," his father added. 

"It’s better with small goals, we take it match by match, as every competition is a different competition."

Taekwondo is a way of life for all the Salims.

Omar's older brother Sharif fought in Guadalajara and made the round-of-16. 

The boys' two sisters also train, and the family business is their dojang, "Salim's Taekwondo".

In a global sport, they are a truly global family - of Tanzanian ancestry, they hold Hungarian nationality and live in Los Angeles, California.

There, when he is not training or teaching taekwondo, Omar runs on the city's beaches and surfs its waves. 

With his athletic physique, colourful sports gear and dreadlocks, he exemplifies California cool.

His father is more focused on sporting aesthetics.

"For me, as much as I want to win, I think it should look nice, so if, at the end of the day we lost, but make the game look nicer, I’d be OK with that," Gergely said. 

"It has to be dynamic! It has to be fun to watch!"

Omar added: "I am not necessarily trying to look a certain way, I try to enjoy it and have fun. 

"I have emotions - nerves and anxiety - but I feel when I am in my most comfortable zone, as I was, I enjoy doing what I have been trained to do all these years."

And now he is setting his sights on winning again in the French capital - at the 2024 Olympic Games.

"It was really good because it was in Paris and my family and team were there to support me," he told World Taekwondo in the aftermath of an eye-catching victory that came just three days before his 20th birthday in September 2022. "So I'm very happy.

"I was expecting a gold medal because when I go into a competition, I always want the gold medal. I felt good coming into the competition, tried my best and won gold."

His route to the final was filled with world-class opponents including South Korea's Olympic bronze medallist Jang Jun, Spain's former European champion Adrián Vicente Yunta and 20-year-old Olympic silver medallist Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi of Tunisia.

It was clear from the roar of the French supporters and chants of "Let's go Cyrian" during his fights that he was competing in front of a home crowd and his local taekwondo club.

But there was good reason for the confidence given that, earlier in the year, Ravet had retained his European under-58 kilograms title in Manchester against a field that featured Yunta and Italy's Olympic champion Vito Dell'Aquila.

His semi-final display against Yunta had the crowd at the Palais des sports Marcel-Cerdan in an uproar as he battled back from 9-2 down.

"Yeah, the first round was really hard for me," he said. "But I tried something in the final few seconds [and I didn't want to eat my kick]. But I just wanted to make Adrián sweat for the second and the third round.

"But when I kicked I scored the point. So I was very happy and I tried my best to win the first round and the match.

"The crowd gave me so much energy it was really incredible. My taekwondo club is only 10 minutes from the venue by car so they all came to support me. 

"And I also celebrated with my family.”

Born and raised in Lyon, Cyrian's role model as a young taekwondo athlete was the South Korean legend Lee Dae-hoon, who won 11 Grand Prix golds and three World Championship titles.

Already he is looking ahead to the Olympics.

"Because this competition was in Paris I can feel how it will be in 2024," he said. "So I'm really happy to win gold here and I hope I will go to Paris where it will be the same objective."

Nine years after beating Anne-Caroline Graffe of France 5-4 to win over-67 kilograms gold at the London 2012 Games, the 29-year-old from Belgrade reached the Olympic peak again with a 10-7 victory over South Korea's Lee Da-bin at the Makuhari Messe Hall A at Tokyo 2020.

Lee had reached the final thanks to a thrilling 25-24 victory over Britain's triple world champion and top seed Bianca Walkden, who had put an end to Mandić's title defence at the 2016 Rio Olympics, beating her 5-0 in the quarter-finals.

Mandić's passage to the final was secured through a 7-5 win over France's Laurin Althea, who had previously beaten China's defending champion Zheng Shuyin 14-6.

Mandić established an early 5-0 lead over Lee in the final with a strike to the head and trunk, and continued to control proceedings.

Lee drew level at 6-6 with 40 seconds left, but a punch and a kick to the body proved to be decisive for Mandić, who burst into tears on the podium after collecting her country's first gold medal of Tokyo 2020.

During an emotional homecoming, Mandić confirmed that, despite the coaching staff urging her to go on to the Paris 2024 Olympics, the Tokyo 2020 Games would be her last.

"Everything is so familiar and yet so strange to me," Mandić told b92.net.

"That's how I felt at the Olympics. We knew how ready we were. The pressure was always there, but we learned to deal with it. It's unrealistic for me to say I'm a two-time gold medallist.

"Now I feel at the peak of my career. 

"I thought I wouldn't be able to repeat this success many times. 

"It's time to take a break. 

"I'm not ready for the new Olympic cycle - then I'll be around 34. 

"It's time for a break. 

"I wouldn't think much about it right now. 

"I would like to fully enjoy this moment." 

A year on, and Mandić - now with the surname Djuricic after getting married in 2021 - is free to reflect upon the achievements of 20 years in the sport now she has left it. 

Although only in terms of being an athlete, as she is now pursuing a career as a TV commentator, a role in which she made her debut at the Paris 2022 World Taekwondo Grand Prix.

"I gave a lot of interviews as an athlete but to now be on the other side of the camera as their friend is different," she said. 

"But I like it really, I just love being around the athletes. 

"For me, this is a healthy community. We are all one family and this is best for me."

In fact, during the Paris Grand Prix, Mandić had a moment to catch up with her competitor for gold at London 2012, Graffe of France. 

Coincidentally, Graffe also became a taekwondo commentator for French TV after retiring from the sport.

When talking about her future goals, Mandić told World Taekwondo she was in Paris to learn.

"I want to start by learning from the best," she said. 

"I think I would love to continue working in this field with all the athletes to collect knowledge and experience from the other end. I always enjoyed watching everyone in training and competition, I can really empathise with their struggle and how they are feeling."

Looking back on a career that ended at a dizzying high point, she added: "Tokyo 2020 was my last competition with my coach and my team-mates. It was really emotional for me. But for the first time in my life, I found my true power inside just to go step by step to believe in everything I had done for the last 20 years.

"I never thought I would end my career like this. It was amazing really, in Tokyo and after Tokyo."

Mandić's taekwondo achievements have led to the sport skyrocketing in popularity in Serbia over the past 10 years.

"Before London 2012, nobody knew about taekwondo," she said. "Nobody knew the rules. But after my first gold they knew everything about it!

"And this was a goal for me and my coach, to show everyone in Serbia that taekwondo is a nice sport that builds good character, a good fitness level and is for everyone from the professional to recreational levels."

She described herself as a soldier during London 2012 and noted how her coaches' unwavering belief in her ability to win was a key driving force. Tokyo was different.

"At Tokyo I was almost 30, and you have other aspects of your life: my private life, my family and it's a lot different," she said. "But when I went to final in Tokyo, I said to myself, 'okay, I've been here before and it is the same'. I really felt that was my strength and I felt a lot more relaxed the second time.

"Honestly, when you're at the top of professional sports it's like some kind of addiction to the highs of winning and the adrenaline. Going from Tokyo to a straight line zero was especially hard. Yes, you can focus more on your private life and family which is amazing, but you still miss that feeling.

"It's not easy for an athlete really and for me, I never cared about money for motivation. For me, passion and love for everything I do is the most important thing."

Mandić and her trainer Dragan Jović were included in the Taekwondo Hall of Fame in the wake of the London 2012 Games, at a ceremony in Las Vegas.

That was a first peak for the Belgrade-born athlete who, eight years earlier, had made her competitive international debut in the cadet category at the European Championships in Palermo.

Her promise was confirmed in 2008 as she earned World Championship youth bronze in the under-68kg class.

Once in the senior ranks, she made a breakthrough in 2011, winning four Open events and taking bronze in the under-73kg class at the World Championships in Gyeongju.

Her London 2012 victory was preceded by European silver in the under-73kg division and another European silver followed in 2014.

A year later she won silver at the inaugural 2015 European Games and in 2016 she took another European silver.

A year after her unsuccessful Olympic defence in Rio, she returned to the top of the global sport as she beat Oh Hye-ri of South Korea 17-13 in the under-73kg final at the Muju World Championships.

At the end of 2019 she gave notice of her continuing threat to be the best in her division as she won silver in the over-67kg class at the Grand Prix final in Moscow, losing 7-4 to China's Olympic champion Zheng.

She had two competitive forays in 2020 - both fruitful - as she took silver at the WT President's Cup-Europe at Helsingborg, and then won the US Open in Kissimmee.

Having navigated the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, this Serbian phenomenon emerged ready to reach the heights of her sport once again and was duly rewarded.

The 16-year-old from a taekwondo family dynasty won gold in the women's over-68 kilograms category in the Bulgarian capital, overcoming South Korea's Sugee Jung in the final.

Such was the quality of her performances, Uzuncavdar was named as the women's most valuable player for the whole competition.

"Being chosen as the best among the best is a wonderful feeling," she told World Taekwondo. 

"It is an important place in my career that I will never forget.

"I am very happy and proud. I can't find words to describe my feelings. I am incredibly happy that our hard work has paid off.

"I went through tough times before the tournament, but at that moment when I became the world champion and ran with the flag, I felt that all the difficulties I experienced were worth it. And I will work harder to experience that feeling again.

"After becoming the world champion my goals and responsibility increased even more. It changed my perspective on life and my thoughts. What doesn't change is my character and training.

"I believe that I will become the world champion in the seniors category, Insha'Allah.

"As an athlete, my biggest dream is the Olympics and I feel that I am closer to this dream day by day. I will do my best to compete and win a medal in 2024."

Earlier in 2022, Uzuncavdar competed in the senior Spanish Open and Sweden Open events, losing 4-3 in the final of the former. She finished fifth in the senior European Championships women's over-73kg category in Manchester.

No-one could wish for greater support in their taekwondo ambitions. Sude Yaren's grandmother, Kibar Uzunçavdar, has been involved in the sport for more than 50 years as a taekwondo athlete who moved on to become a referee and coach.

Her father Serkan Uzunçavdar is also a former athlete who now works as a national trainer.

"We aim to win a medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics," Serkan said of his daughter. "There will be difficulties, but Sude is an athlete who can overcome difficulties."

Describing herself as the third generation athlete of this taekwondo family, Sude Yaren said: "As a family, there is a great effort. 

"My whole family is sad with me when I am defeated, they are happy with me when I am champion. I owe them an Olympics too.

"My mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, everyone is involved in this business. 

"My father is always with me. We talk with my grandmother, mother and aunt at the same time. 

"We put a lot of effort as a family. We are in this business as a family. I grew up in taekwondo halls. This is a great advantage for me. 

"My goal is to break historical records. I want Olympic, European and World Championships in a row. My goal is big."

Watch this space.

At Tokyo 2020, he won the country's second medal since it earned the right to appear at the Games as an independent nation in 1996.

Four years after that landmark Olympics, Magomed Ibragimov earned his country - formerly part of Yugoslavia - a bronze medal in the men's freestyle 85 kilograms wrestling event at Sydney 2000.

Four more Summer Games came and went without one of Ibragimov's compatriots stepping up to an Olympic medal rostrum.

But in Tokyo, Georgievski earned his place on the second step after a fine campaign in the men's over-80kg heavyweight taekwondo event.

The Skopje-born athlete was not without international experience. He won bronze at the European Under-21 Championships in 2017 and 2018, and also earned silver at the Mediterranean Games held in the latter year.

He had to overcome exceptional odds to even reach Tokyo, as he beat the Rio 2016 champion, Radik Isayev of Azerbaijan, at the European Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Sofia.

The Tokyo 2020 competition was hardly less arduous. In the round of 16 he was drawn against Cuba's reigning world champion, Rafael Alba, where he prevailed 11-8. 

In order to reach the final he had to get past two-time Asian champion Kyo-don of South Korea, which he did 12-6.

The run finally came to an end as he lost to the Russian Olympic Committee's world under-87kg champion Vladislav Lisin.

But it was a proud and unique moment for a young athlete who has years of potential medal-winning in front of him.

After winning the Rome Grand Prix in June 2022, she told World Taekwondo that she was trying to adopt a less pressurised approach to competition after her unhappy experience in Tokyo, where she lost 11-10 to Egypt's Hedaya Wahba in her opening contest in the women's under-67 kilograms welterweight category. 

"I am very competitive," said the athlete from Nancy. 

"When I come inside the ring I will do everything to win. 

"But I do not want to put in my head I want gold. I did this at the Tokyo Olympics and it brought so much pressure and I didn't enjoy the fighting. 

"I want to be more relaxed but will of course do everything in training and everything in fights, but I want to enjoy myself."

Wiet-Hénin knows how to succeed. Crowned world junior champion in 2012, she won silver at the 2018 European Championships and earned bronze the following year in the lightweight class at the Manchester World Championships.

At the Rome Grand Prix in June 2022, she completed her set of medals from that event.

"Grand Prix is one of my favourite events," she said. "In European and World Championship events there is more pressure to get the medal. 

"In Grand Prix I feel more free. I can do different types of fights. I can enjoy more. I feel great to fight with the top athletes, with people we don't always see when we are in Europe. 

"So, it feels really good.

"I can be less focused on strategy and enjoy more doing turning kicks or try new stuff. At the Grand Prix I just want to have fun."

However, the competitive urge was already competing with the fun as she looked ahead to her next Grand Prix in Paris.

"It will be good to see how the Olympics will be," she said. "I can't wait to fight in Paris.

"For the French Taekwondo Federation, we've never got an Olympic gold. 

"Every Olympics we get a medal, we get silver, we get bronze, but we've never got gold. 

"So, for them we want to get the first gold. For myself I'm looking forward to fighting in Paris in the Olympics and of course I want to win at home."

Among those supporting Wiet-Hénin in person in Rome was her mother, who was a world champion boxer, as was Henin’s father.

"They never wanted me to do boxing - too rough!" said Wiet-Hénin, who earned a Masters degree in human resource management in Paris. 

"Taekwondo is more about strategy and spinning kicks, it is not as rough as boxing.

"I have dreamed about the Olympics since I was six."

It is not just her own dream as her mother never got the chance to box in the Olympics.

"It was my mother's dream," Wiet-Hénin said. "Now, it is my dream."

The fighter from Liverpool first put herself on the map in international terms by winning bronze at the 2007 European Junior Championships in Baku, and since then the list of her accomplishments has grown steadily.

She returned to Baku for the first of her three senior European titles in 2014, and earned her first world gold the following year in Chelyabinsk, becoming only the second Briton to earn a global title after Sarah Stevenson's triumphs in 2001 and 2011.

At her first Olympics at Rio 2016 she lost her quarter-final 4-1 after sudden death to China's Zheng Shuyin, who went on to take gold.

Three years later, after Walkden had retained her world title in Muju, South Korea, she earned her third global gold in controversial circumstances which saw her beaten opponent in the final, Zheng, collapse in tears on the podium at the 2019 World Championships in Manchester.

Despite being 20-10 up against Walkden in the women's heavyweight final, China's Rio 2016 champion was disqualified for incurring ten fouls after her opponent had repeatedly pushed her off the mat.

The tactic employed by Walkden, who thus earned her third consecutive world title, was considered unsportsmanlike by some but was nevertheless within the rules, and the British athlete was quite satisfied with the outcome, declaring: "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Walkden's change of tactic had occurred after Zheng, who had already accrued seven penalty points, had become inactive after taking a ten-point lead. 

When the result was announced there was booing in the arena, and Zheng's coach gave the officials a thumbs-down sign.

But after the Chinese athlete had dropped to her knees on the podium, Britain's performance director Gary Hall took issue with her "disrespectful manner".

Walkden defended her tactics, saying: "I went out there needing to find a different way to win and a win is a win if you disqualify someone - it's not my fault."

After the COVID-19 wilderness year of 2020, Walkden - who has been in a relationship with fellow taekwondo player Aaron Cook, British-born but representing Moldova since 2008 - had the ideal preparation for her second Olympics.

Having won the European title for a second time in 2016, she added her third with victory in the over-73kg category in Sofia.

Walkden went to the postponed Tokyo 2020 Games as number one seed in the women's over-67kg category and received a bye in her first round when her opponent Reshmie Oogink of The Netherlands tested positive for COVID-19.

After a 17-7 quarter-final win over Kazakhstan's Cansel Deniz, she faced South Korea's 2019 world champion in the under-73kg class, Lee Da-bin, and lost a desperately close encounter 25-24, with her opponent going on to take silver after a 10-7 defeat in the final by Serbia's Milica Mandić.

But Walkden did not walk away empty-handed as she earned a second Olympic bronze with a 7-3 win over Poland's Aleksandra Kowalczuk.

"I want to come home with the first British men's Olympic gold medal," he said .

"I have had a lot to improve on, but I have a lot of drive."

The pioneering young athlete from Doncaster came agonisingly close to his ambition, a year later than planned when Tokyo 2020 was postponed to 2021.

With just eight seconds remaining of his men's under 68-kilograms final against Uzbekistan's 19-year-old Ulugbek Rashitov, the Briton led by two points.

At this point the 17th-seeded Rashitov, who had beaten South Korean idol and number one seed Lee Dae-hoon in the round-of-16, produced an audacious swivelling kick to the head followed by one to the body, thus creating his own two-point lead.

After a flurry of activity to regain the initiative, Sinden was penalised and ended up losing 34-29.

As the Uzbek camp rose in jubilation, Sinden sank disconsolately to the mat in the Makuhari Messe Hall.

Sinden, who had defeated China's formidable third seed Shuai Zhao 33-25 in his semi-final, said: "I made a mistake, as he came forward I saw that he'd stumbled, and I didn't think he would be able to attack and fair play to him he took advantage of that."

Two years earlier, Sinden had created history in Manchester, finally matching the world titles supplied to Britain by female athletes Jade Jones, Bianca Walkden and Sarah Stevenson in preceding years.

Sinden joined the golden crew thanks to a 24-19 win in the under-68kg final over the favourite, Spain's Javier Pérez Polo.

British men had previously reached the podium at the World Championships over a period of more than 40 years, with Lindsay Lawrence winning two silvers and a bronze between 1979 and 1983.

Having won under-63kg bronze at the 2017 World Championships in Muju, South Korea, Sinden was able to move two steps up to the top of the podium.

"I went out there to see what I could do," he told World Taekwondo.

"Ultimately, I put the work in and that is what got me the gold medal.

"Being Britain's first male champion is also great and I am really lucky to be the first one from the team.

"The girls are so dominant in the sport, so the men need to step up our competition."

Sinden added that his "emotional" defeat in the previous year's World Taekwondo Grand Slam in Wuxi, China, where he was beaten in the final by home athlete Zhao, had caused him to review his training.

"I looked at what I needed to do better," he said.

"I implemented everything I needed to change in my next three events leading up to the World Championships and went to training camp."

Before the year had finished, Sinden had reached the G4 European Championships final, where Pérez Polo avenged his World Championship final loss, and a month later he got to the Grand Prix Final in Moscow, losing to Lee.

After winning the European Clubs Championship title in Zagreb in 2020, Sinden took advantage of the fuller fixture list in 2021 by winning silver at the European Championships in Tokyo.

And while the height of his ambition was not achieved in the Japanese capital, Sinden remained at 22 a hugely potent global force in the men's under-68kg category.

The 22-year-old Briton led Croatia's Matea Jelić by three points until the latter landed two head kicks that provided a stunning conclusion to the final.

Despairingly, Williams - who had beaten the gold medal favourite, Rio 2016 bronze medallist Ruth Gbagbi of Ivory Coast, in the semi-final - surged forward in the last three seconds in an effort to counter-attack.

But it was too late - the score remained at 25-22 and gold went to Jelić.

Williams, who had been hoping to emulate her Welsh compatriot Jade Jones, who she had watched on TV winning the first of her two Olympic titles at the London 2012 Games - collapsed motionless on the edge of the mat.

"It's not enough, I know it's not enough," she said. "I had her with 10 seconds to go, but I messed up and that's on me. I knew I was winning, but I didn't know there was only 10 seconds left.

"I made a mistake and she reacted and I've got to accept that and move on. It was a mental block. It happened on the biggest stage of my career, that's a hit, but hopefully it will never happen again."

She added: "An Olympic silver medal, it's not bad, is it?"

Her achievement was all the greater for the fact that her preparations for the delayed Olympics had been disrupted by a torn right hamstring three weeks before competition began, as well as flight delays which meant she had arrived late at her pre-Games training camp.

"It's been tough, physically and mentally, over the last few years with all the injuries I've had," she said. "And the flight was delayed coming out here, so it hasn't been easy. But there is no excuse."

Williams was world youth champion in kickboxing by the time she watched Jones - who is now a training partner - winning at the London Olympics. She was signed up for trials in taekwondo by her father.

Having been selected aged 14, Williams was not old enough to enter the athlete accommodation at the team's base in Manchester. Instead, her mother quit her job, and the two of them lived in a caravan near the site. They stayed there for 18 months.

Such was the commitment of Williams' parents that they flew to Rio in 2016 even though their daughter was only a reserve in the British team there.

While they were not able to be in Tokyo, they have witnessed numerous triumphs over the past eight years.

Williams announced her enormous potential by winning the world youth title in Taipei in 2014, and two years later she was European senior champion in the under-67kg category at the age of 17. Later that year she retained her world youth title…

She also retained her European title at the 2018 Championships in Kazan, and earned it a third time in the following year's Extra European Championships in Bari before losing the title last year after a 13-10 defeat by Jelić.

Her performance at the 2017 and 2019 World Championships was relatively disappointing - but Tokyo 2020 underlined her ability to make a big splash in global competition. Expect more water to be displaced imminently…

When she set off for the belated Tokyo 2020 Olympics, however, it was a third senior title that was on the mind of this exuberant talent from Flint.

"The goal is to get three Olympic golds," she said. "The biggest legends - Team China's Jingyu Wu and Team USA's Steve Lopez - have not been able to do it, so that shows how much of an ask it is…I believe I could do it."

It was not to be. In her first contest the defending champion was defeated by Kimia Alizadeh, who would go on to narrowly miss becoming the first Refugee Olympic Team athlete to win a medal as she lost her bronze medal match.

Alizadeh, who had International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach in attendance in the expectation of her success, had won bronze for Iran at Rio 2016 before fleeing the country.

For Jones it was a shattering anti-climax to what she had hoped would be a historic tournament.

She thus stands with Wu and Lopez on the two-gold podium, where she was joined a couple of days later by Serbia's Milica Mandić, who won a second women's over-67kg title after her earlier success at London 2012.

But nobody would be foolish enough to rule out the possibility of Jones, who is still only 28, returning to the top of the Olympic podium before she retires.

Her experience in Tokyo served to underline the wisdom of her words in the aftermath of her exhilarating 16-7 win over Eva Calvo Gomez of Spain in the Rio 2016 final.

"I know I am the best, but in taekwondo, anything can happen," Jones, who won in 2012 aged just 19, said.

"After London, I did not want to be a one-hit wonder.

"The run up to Rio was a different ball game, I had been undefeated all year, so there was so much pressure, so much expectation."

She added that victory had almost been a relief. "It was still joy," she said. "But more like, 'thank God'. Anything else would have been a fail."

At that time she was also looking forward to the 2019 World Championships, which were due to be held in Manchester.

"I will try to be an ambassador and for me it is an amazing opportunity for friends and family to come and watch as, usually, taekwondo is in faraway countries, so my family does not have the chance to come," she said. "Also, when it is in the UK, people say it is the best atmosphere."

She arrived at the Manchester Arena and fully lived up to her own expectations, and those of her family and friends in the stands, as she beat Lee Ah-reum of South Korea 14-7 to earn her first world title.

In terms of her inspiration, Jones has cited her former coach, Paul Green, and her grandfather. "My grandad took me to taekwondo at age eight, and he literally travelled the world and used his savings to get to the competitions," she said. "I still ask his advice."

She described herself as "family oriented" and says she likes to "laugh, joke and be a bit silly".

But that is not her taekwondo personality. On the field of play, Jones is aggressive, dangerous and venomous. 

"I am a bit rough-and-tumble the way I have been brought up, I am not scared to go toe-to-toe," she said. "A lot of girls shy away from that, it is not natural to fight."

And she is a hard-core trainer. An acquaintance noted - with awe - that Jones and Green sometimes finished gruelling all-day national team training sessions, before heading out to private dojangs in Manchester for extra evening training.

"I have quite an obsessive personality," Jones confessed, admitting to being "a bit bonkers". "Anything I do, I don't do half-heartedly."

At the 2017 World Championships in Muju, South Korea Jones took bronze.  

Having earned his country's first men's world taekwondo gold at the 2017 Championships, Khramtsov further adorned his CV by becoming the first Russian to win an Olympic title in the sport.

Khramtsov initially trained in karate but, in 2011 and aged 13, he changed to taekwondo because he wanted to compete at the Olympics.

The transition proved hugely effective. Aged just 17, Khramtsov reached the final of the Moscow Grand Prix in 2015, reaching the men's under-68 kilograms final. He lost that bout with honour, 16-10 to South Korea's Lee Dae-hoon. The Korean had already won two world titles and would add Olympic bronze the following year in Rio.

Khramtsov rounded off his year by winning the Russian Open title, again in Moscow, before earning gold at the European Youth Championships and then at the European Under-21 Championships.

The following year, Khramtsov retained the latter title while winning numerous open crowns.

He was ready to push on. And, in 2017, at the World Championships in Muju, South Korea, he won the men's under-74kg title with a 6-3 victory over Nikita Rafalovich of Uzbekistan.

Khramtsov thus matched the performance of his compatriot Olga Ivanova, who won the women's over-73kg world title in Puebla, Mexico in 2013.

In 2018, Khramtsov was an emphatic winner of the senior European title at the under-80kg weight, earning a 58-16 win in an all-action final in Kazan against the former Briton Aaron Cook, representing Moldova.

He suffered a rare defeat in the Grand Prix Final at Fujairah, however, losing 27-14 in the final to Norway's Richard Andre Ordemann.

In 2019, he lost his world title, beaten in the round of 32 at the Championships in Manchester at an event where gold went to Azerbaijan's Milad Beigi.

Khramtsov finished the year strongly, however, winning the Rome Grand Prix and Grand Prix Final in Moscow, and he reached the final of the Chiba Grand Prix alongside winning the Military World Games title.

He resumed his career early in 2021 by earning the European under-80kg title - ideal preparation for the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in the Japanese capital.

Khramtsov, representing the Russian Olympic Committee, won the men's under-80kg gold with a 20-9 victory in the final over Saleh El-Sharabaty of Jordan.

El-Sharabaty had hoped to follow in the footsteps of Ahmad Abughaush, who made history at Rio 2016 when he became the first Jordanian athlete to win Olympic gold in any sport.

But Khramtsov quickly gained a stranglehold on the bout, and while El-Sharabaty managed to get on the board with a punch before pulling off a superb spinning kick to the head to get within one point of his opponent, he never got any closer and Khramtsov forged ahead again.

Aged just 23, the Russian had reached the top of his sport.

She did so after turning what looked like imminent defeat into victory in the women's under-67 kilograms final, against Britain's Lauren Williams at the Makuhari Messe.

With just 13 seconds remaining, Jelić trailed by three points to an opponent who had disposed of the gold medal favourite, Rio 2016 bronze medallist Ruth Gbagbi of Ivory Coast.

The 23-year-old Croat landed a head kick - and then another - that dropped Williams to the mat. Despairingly, the Briton surged forward in the last three seconds in an effort to counter-attack. It was too late, the score remained at 25-22 and gold went to Jelić. The Croat had offered the most dramatic demonstration of how well she had learned a vital lesson from two years earlier.

At the first of the three World Taekwondo Grand Prix series meetings in 2019, in Rome, Jelić - who had not managed to score a single point in the first two rounds of the 67kg final against South Korea's Kim Jan-Di - turned a silver medal into gold in the last 10 seconds as she landed a spinning back kick followed by a front kick to win 8-3. 

"The fight is not over until it is done and the referee says so," Jelić said.

Two weeks before her moment of clarity in Rome, Jelić had lost by just one point to Brazil’s Milena Titoneli in the last 16 of the World Championships in Manchester.

Two weeks on, Jelić used that disappointment and frustration as motivation.

"You can lose everything in one second," she said, after recently moving from her family home in Knin to take up regular training in Split. 

"Never give up. Just keep trying. 

"I feel amazing because two weeks ago I lost at the World Championships. So I can say I didn't give up and now I look forward to future matches.

"I think what was missing at the World Championships was my self-belief. Here I trust myself and my coach and the people around me."

That self-belief certainly shone in Tokyo.

Reflecting after her 2019 win in Rome upon her early career, the tactically astute Jelić, who stands at six foot tall, said: "I was in taekwondo since I was a kid. 

"From the start it wasn't so serious but later I wanted to do more and more. I was watching Grand Prix meetings on my laptop and was hoping to get here. 

"Now I'm here I'm very grateful and happy.

"But I want to put dreams in front of me so I can try to reach them. So maybe my next dream is to go to an Olympic Games and win a medal."

Fast forward two years - and the dream came true.

Aged 20, he earned a dramatic win over 19-year-old Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi of Tunisia - winning 16-12 at the Makuhari Messe to win Italy's first gold of the Games.

Dell'Aquila, who was making his Games debut, launched his attack on Jendoubi from the start of the closely fought contest.

The two young fighters were tied at 10-10 with 15 seconds left on the clock, before Dell'Aquila won with a series of strikes.

Jendoubi had caused an upset earlier on when he beat world champion and favourite for gold, Jang Jun of South Korea, 25-19 in the semi-final.

Dell'Aquila was born in Mesagne, in the province of Brindisi, on November 3, 2000, and took up taekwondo at the age of eight, joining the gym of his first teacher, Roberto Baglivo.

The Italian's arrival at the highest level could not be termed a surprise given his competitive career up to that point.

He took gold in the under-49kg category at the 2014 World Cadet Championships, and added European junior golds in 2015 and 2017. In the latter year he added senior world bronze.

In 2018, Dell’Aquila took bronze at the senior European Championships, and the following year his ambitions grew even stronger as he earned victory at the Grand Prix Final in Moscow.

He beat the event's world number one Jun in Russia, the 2019 world champion who ended up with a bronze medal at Tokyo 2020 following his surprise exit at the hands of Jendoubi.

It was a superb tour de force for the young Italian, who will surely be there or thereabouts when the Olympic podium is populated again at the Paris 2024 Games. 

Before Tokyo 2020 was postponed and rearranged, two Russian fighters had qualified to compete at the Olympic Games - Maxim Khramtsov in the under-80 kilograms and Vladislav Larin in the over-80kg category.

Both athletes topped the world rankings at their weights with a month to go until the start of Tokyo 2020.

At 25, Larin had already assembled a formidable CV that included a complete set of world medals in the under-87kg category - bronze at Chelyabinsk in 2015, silver in Muju in 2017 and gold in Manchester in 2019.

Larin also has two European under-87kg golds in his collection from the 2016 Championships in Montreux and the 2018 Championships in Kazan.

At the 2021 European Championships he had to settle for a silver in the over-87kg category after a monumental struggle with Arman-Marshall Silla of Belarus.

With just seconds to go in round three of the final, Silla equalised to make it 9-9, and in the additional round found just enough to take gold.

Pre-COVID, Larin earned six World Taekwondo Grand Prix titles between 2017 and 2019, most recently in Rome where he defeated Kazakhstan's Ruslan Zhaparov at the Foro Italica Arena.

That performance came just weeks after Larin had won world gold at under-87kg in the Manchester Arena, beating Brazil's Icaro Miguel Soares, who is also picked for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, 19-9 in the final.

What was even more impressive about the victory in Rome, however, was the fact that Larin managed it despite having to fight most of the final with a dislocated finger.

The Russian landed awkwardly on his finger midway through the second round, meaning he had to fight the remainder of the gold medal match with practically one hand.

To make things worse, he was up against pre-tournament favorite, Kyo-Don-in of South Korea.

Before his taekwondo career took off, Larin was a talented gymnast until a fracture to his hand when landing a stunt caused him to switch tracks. 

Larin's outgoing personality, combined with this desire to entertain, formed his captivating style of fighting, most notably his trademark spinning kicks to the head of his opponents.

However, experience has taught Larin that he must pick his moments to unleash these signature moves.

"It is always good to entertain," he said. "I like to perform my spinning kick moves, but you need to know when to use them. They can be useful against some opponents but not against others."

The Rome final match proved to be a fight where Larin had to remain composed and show his adaptability.

"In the final there was no need to use my spinning moves," he said. "I felt like I was always in control. Also the dislocation of my finger meant that I didn't want to take any risks."

Niaré, who earned her Rio silver medal and world title in the women's under-67 kilograms division, decided that, at 27, pushing on to Tokyo 2020 was a step too far.

The French athlete has not competed at an elite event since the 2019 World Championships in Manchester, where she was knocked out in the round-of-16.

"As I stop striding and stepping on the octagonal area, I remain guided by my positive emotions and the urge to face new challenges," Niaré told World Taekwondo.

"After 10 years of good and loyal service in high-level sport, my devouring desire to live new tournaments has fallen deep into my body's wear."

Niaré was the top seed at Rio 2016 and suffered an agonising 13-12 defeat to South Korea's Oh Hye-ri in the final.

Three years earlier she had secured the world title in Puebla in Mexico.

Niaré is also a former European champion and four-time continental medallist. 

"I am and will remain a champion of emotions," Niaré added in a message announcing her retirement.

"I'll be at the front row cheering on my sisters and brothers in arms for the rest of the Olympic adventure."

Tall, leggy and lithe, Niaré has always shown a charming and bubbly personality alongside her formidable fighting talents.

A native of Mates la Jolie - a suburb of Paris where she is widely recognised for her taekwondo achievements - Niaré stood out within the women's sport because of her unique technique with spin kicks and face kicks.

French coach Medhi Bensafi said: "She is special and spectacular, not a conventional style."

Niaré's most eye-catching technique was a heel hook kick that she unleashes - almost impossibly - from up close.

"I love the 'scorpion kick', in my team that is the name for this kick," she said. 

"When we are in the clinch, when she thinks I can't do anything - then I fire that. But I need to do it fast and if you want to do this kick, you need to be very flexible."

She added: "Mental is most important for the fights, it's all in the spirit.

"The winner is not always the best, the winner is the one with the head game. I think it through round by round, I know what my work is and I don’t panic."

Now, she will be applying her formidable mental talents in a new and broader field of play.

Isayev indicated his potential at the 2013 World Championships in the Mexican city of Puebla where, aged 23, he took the bronze medal in the middleweight under-87 kilograms class after losing 3-2 in his semi-final to China's Ma Zhaoyong.

The following year, Isayev picked up what would be the first of his three – so far – continental titles when he won the European Championships on his home ground of Baku, earning a commanding 12-2 win in the final against France's Mbar Ndiaye. 

In 2015 he returned to the Azerbaijani capital to contest the first European Games – and did so as world champion, having won the middleweight title in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk thanks to two titanic victories. 

In the semi-final he defeated Cuba's defending champion, Rafael Alba, 7-6, and he then beat Uzbekistan's Asian Games champion Jasur Baykuzigyev 5-4 for gold.

Expectations were sky-high for the home athlete in the taekwondo-mad host city, and he rose spectacularly to the occasion, delivering the heavyweight over-80kg European Games title with a 4-3 win over Russia's Vladislav Lorin in front of a vociferous crowd in the Crystal Hall.

It was the perfect preparation for his first Olympic competition – and in Rio the following year he hit the mark again as he took gold with a 6-2 win over Niger's Abdoul Issoufou at the Carioca Arena 3.

Having lost in the round-of-16 at the 2016 European Championships, he returned to the gold standard in that competition when it was held in the Russian city of Kazan in 2018, beating home fighter Roman Kuznetsov 10-7 in the final.

Isayev exited at the round-of-16 stage in last year's Manchester World Championships, but recovered his momentum with bronze medals at the Chiba Grand Prix and the Grand Prix final in Moscow.

He indicated that he was still going strong with victories early in 2020 at the Helsingborg and Dutch Open before the coronavirus lockdown halted operations.    

A high, round kick to the head of Morocco's Nada Laraaj turned a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 winning margin for the 26-year-old Turkish fighter whose career was gathering huge momentum up to the point where competition had to be held up because of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

"One second," said the leggy, five foot, nine inch fighter in an interview the following day with World Taekwondo. 

"I can't believe it, but at that moment I was hearing the signal and I was so happy."

Iİlgün started taekwondo 14-years-ago though a family contact. 

"My advantages are that my legs are very long, and I am strong and slim," she said. "And I work hard."

Her promise in the sport was soon evident as she earned second place in the senior under-49kg event at the Dutch Open aged 16. The following year, she was under-57kg bronze medallist at the European Under-21 Championships in Chisinau and senior titles soon followed in the Turkish, Ukraine and Moldova Open events.

In 2017, she took another significant step-up as she won under-57kg silver at the World Championships in Muju, losing 7-5 to South Korea's Lee Ah-reum, who had beaten Britain's Olympic champion Jade Jones in the semi-final.

Before the year was over she had won gold at the Summer Universiade in Taipei, and she followed up by earning her first Grand Prix title in Rabat. 

At the 2018 European Championships in Kazan she added another significant medal to her collection as she earned silver, losing to Jones in the final.

In 2019, she produced a series of results that bettered for consistency anything she had done before. 

Her Chiba win was preceded by silver at the Rome Grand Prix, and followed by bronze at the Sofia Grand Prix and a silver in the Grand Prix Final in Moscow.

She continued into 2020 in the same dominant vein, winning the Fujairah Open and WT Presidents Cup - Europe in Helsingborg before taking bronze at the German Open.

Qualification for the next Olympics has been amply secured.

"I am really hard working," she told World Taekwondo. "And I really want to be there."

A medal at Tokyo would be a life-changing achievement. Turkey awards successful European, World or Olympic medal-winning athletes with monetary compensation and post-career coaching positions.

"That is good for building my future," she added. "But I will fight under the Turkish national flag. That is more important to me than money."

This 23-year-old from Plaistow in East London, who switched from kickboxing – his father’s sport – to taekwondo in 2013 – has shown ample talent and versatility since, and his performance in earning silver at the World Taekwondo (WT) Grand Prix in Chiba last October only confirmed his growing presence in the sport.

"I was from kickboxing, which is the same sort of thing [to taekwondo]," he told World Taekwondo. 

"The transition from one combat sport to another was not a great challenge. My persona is I adapt well, I am good at learning."

Since working with Team GB's coaching and conditioning staff in Manchester, McNeish has established an estimable CV.

In 2014 he indicated his huge potential in his new discipline by winning bronze in the under-63kg category at the Youth Olympics in Nanjing.

The following year he won bronze in the under-68kg class at the Summer Universiade in Gwangju, South Korea.

He has since earned further success at senior level. His stand-out achievement from 2017 was a bronze medal in the Moscow Grand Prix, where he was narrowly beaten 17-16 in his semi-final by home athlete Alexey Denisenko.

In the next competition after that, the London Grand Prix, the rivalry between himself and Sinden was pointed-up as the younger man beat him 18-17.

The following year he became European champion in the Russian city of Kazan with a 28-21 win over home athlete Sarmat Tcakoev.

There was disappointment for McNeish last year as he lost his opening contest at the Manchester World Championships in May. But his form picked up dramatically with five medals, before competition was suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak.

He won the World Taekwondo President's Cup – Oceania, held in Carrara, Queensland, and then stepped briefly up to the under-74kg class in winning bronze at the Australian Open.

Moving on to the Grand Prix at Chiba, he produced one of his most impressive performances, although he had to settle eventually for silver after a hugely competitive final against Iran's Mirhashem Hosseini who won 36-20.

"I am happy with how the day went," he told World Taekwondo in the aftermath.

"I had some good fights, and I improved over my previous performance at GPs and at the Worlds.

"I am definitely happy with how it has gone and I hope to continue to improve on my performance."

In December, at the final Grand Prix of 2019 in Wuxi, McNeish also excelled, only missing out on bronze after losing 2-1 to home competitor Lin Wenye on golden point.

This year has offered him two further material rewards for his talent in the shape of a bronze medal from the WT President's Cup – Europe, held in Helsingborg, and gold in the Hamburg Open.

Asked to assess his own style, he said: "Obviously leg control – but my favourites are any things that are a bit more erratic and dynamic." 

On the technique front, his favoured blows are all crowd-pleasers: back kicks, double kicks and – something that was very much on show during his Chiba final – high kicks delivered from within the clinch.

Clearly he is at home in both open play and the close-in ruck. "I try to be balanced," he said.

He has also prioritised stamina. "I push my fitness, so I can push the fight," he said, which explains the extraordinary work rate that was apparent in his Chiba bouts.

Above all, he is a self-believer. "I rate myself as a fighter and I don't over-rate other fighters," he said. "My dad calls me 'champion.'"

But the 25-year-old from Nannestad remains a potent threat in the under-80 kilograms category as the world's best taekwondo exponents re-calibrate their sights to the postponed Tokyo Games.

After announcing himself to the taekwondo world with a bronze medal at the 2014 European Junior Championships, Ordemann indicated that he was already capable of making his mark in the senior ranks as he earned bronze later that season in the French Open.

Since then he has amassed 20 medals in senior Open events, including eight golds.

In 2017 he won bronze at the Summer Universiade in Taipei, losing 12-10 to Raul Martinez Garcia of Spain. Earlier that year Ordemann had reached the quarter-finals at the World Championships in Muju, South Korea, losing 8-6 to Russia's eventual silver medallist Anton Kotkov.

The following year was a memorable one for the young Norwegian, as he began with a silver medal at the Turkish Open followed by golds at the Dutch and German Opens.

At the European Championships in Kazan he shared bronze, having lost 17-14 in his semi-final against Aaron Cook, the Briton who represents Moldova.

Then he produced one of the best results of his career to beat the odds-on favourite, Maksim Khramtcov of Russia, 27-14, and claim men's under-80kg gold at the Fujairah Grand Prix Final in the United Arab Emirates.

A superb round kick to the face from Ordemann in the third round drew gasps from the crowd and looked like it stunned the Russian. 

"Most of my head shots have a bit of power behind them," the Norwegian told World Taekwondo after the fight. "It puts them in a mental state that I quite like.

"It went according to plan – but my plans were quite simplistic; I don't go into detail. That limits myself."

He added: "I have been sneaking under the radar a bit. I have not had massive medals and I have not been really big on posting online, trying to get a big following."

At that point he was already looking ahead to the Tokyo 2020 Games, and putting emphasis on the importance of physical conditioning.

"Tokyo is very much on the horizon, and this medal puts me in a good spot for qualifying," he said.

"Injuries you can't really do much about: if it happens it happens.

"So I do a lot of 'prehab' - exercises to prevent injuries.

"This is the start of something good: I think you will be seeing a lot more of me on the podiums in the future.

"I am here to stay."

His season last year was relatively less successful – he took silver at the Turkish and Egyptian Opens, and gold at the Polish Open in Warsaw. 

But he was tantalisingly close to the podium in the season-ending events of the Extra European Championships in Bari, where he lost 5-3 to Kotkov in the quarter-final, and the Grand Prix Final in Moscow, where he also reached the last eight.

As Ordemann looks ahead to the re-staged Tokyo Games, he knows he has real medal chances… 

Alessio's surprise landmark achievement took place in Manchester on May 18 in 2019 as he took on Jordan's Rio 2016 champion Ahmad Abughaush in the men's under-74 kilograms lightweight final.

While the Italian towered over his opponent at 6ft 4in, the Jordanian brought to bear a wealth of experience, having earned the honour of being his country's first Olympic champion.

But the young Italian, who had only turned 19 the previous month, found the way to earn an 18-11 victory.

It was the second major gold for his collection following his win in the under-73kg class at the 2017 European Junior Championships in Larnaca.

"I am so happy and proud of my achievements," he told World Taekwondo. "This has been my dream since I was a child, so it was really great to arrive in the best condition I have ever been in and win gold.

"I had to train really hard for this competition because I knew Abughaush was going to be very strong. When I won, I couldn't believe it, and I think this is only the start."

Alessio accepts that his height can offer some advantages, but points out that it can also work the other way at times.

"I guess I have a small advantage because of my height, but if my opponent is quick and smart, I find this difficult. It is not always easy," he says. "But my favourite action is kicking, which I am good at because of my long legs!"

This was evident in the Manchester final, where Alessio scored well with his kicks to Abughaush's head, but was vulnerable to swift body punches from his opponent.

In the wake of his gold medal performance, Alessio said: "Tokyo 2020 is a dream, but I am not looking that far ahead. 

"I am living in the present and just trying to be the best I can be."

For the following World Taekwondo Grand Prix Series, Alessio moved up to the under-80kg welterweight class and the rest of 2019 became something of a learning curve as he competed at events in Rome, Chiba and Sofia without getting onto the podium – although he was only one round away in Japan.

But Alessio's season finished on a high note in November as he took bronze at the G4 Extra European Championships on his home ground of Bari, having suffered a narrow 15-13 defeat in his semi-final against Russia's eventual champion, Anton Kotkov.

"Tokyo 2020 is my objective of course," he said. "But I want to continue working hard and step by step I will manage to make the best results in all my future competitions."

For Great Britain’s newly crowned junior world champion, Jordyn Smith, that is only half the challenge.

Two days at school in her hometown, Falkirk, Scotland and three days in Manchester, England where she trains with GB Taekwondo’s World Class Performance Programme make up Jordyn’s week.

However, she appears to be striking the perfect balance as she demonstrated this week at the World Taekwondo Junior Championships in Hammamet, Tunisia where she won gold in the -44kg weight category.

“I’m just doing it part time at the moment. Once my exams are finished in May I’ll be training five times a week,” she says. “All the staff at GB are really helpful and really supportive of the school. I always have meetings at the start of the week so I can slot in times when I can do my study as well as training.”

The training certainly seems to be paying off and it was clear just how much the gold medal at the World Championships meant to her. Having overcome Thailand’s Jongkolrattanawattana in the final she dropped to her knees with joy before running round the court with the Union flag flying behind her.

A day later and she had not really come to terms with what she had achieved. “It’s still not really sunk in yet,” she says. “It’s a bit of a shock. Everyone is asking me how I feel and I don’t know what to say.”

That is understandable. Jordyn has been practicing taekwondo since she was four so this title may still feel like a dream.

“I remember going into my first session and being scared of all the loud shouts and the kicks. I used to always run out and hide behind my Dad. But I remember a couple of weeks in, my Dad said this is the last time I’m taking you if you don’t like it. There must have been something in me that day because I said ‘no, I want to do it.’ I think as long as you enjoy the sport then definitely do it.”

That decision clearly paid off for Jordyn and she is now looking forward to moving up to senior level.

“I can fight seniors this year and I’m hoping to fight some senior events and collect some ranking points. Next year that’s when I officially turn senior.”

“I watch them and their commitment to the sport is just amazing. Sometimes I watch them and I just think ‘wow’.”

“Ever since I was little Tokyo was my dream. It might be a bit of a big statement right now but it’s still possible.”

It was a fitting end to Vanja Stanković’s school days: On June 26 in 2017, the 19-year-old Serbian won the gold medal in the female under 49 kilograms category in Muju. But it was not something she had anticipated before she flew out to South Korea. "I did not expect to get to finals I just wanted to show my best and believe in myself and see what will happen," she said in an interview the day following her victory.

That victory adds yet another honour to the increasingly crowded medal wall at her dojang, Belgrade’s famous Galeb - which means "Seagull" in English - Taekwondo Club. Under head coach Dragan Jovic, the club has produced two Olympic medals - London 2012 gold medallist Milica Mandic’s and Rio 2016 silver medallist Tijana Bogdanovic’s Rio silver - and now a World Championship title, Serbia’s first-ever. 

"Galeb is really the most successful club in Europe," Stanković, already a gold medallist at the European Under-21 Championships in Bulgaria and the Belgian Open before Muju, said. "We have good coaches good system of training, we train so hard every day, twice a day." 

Galeb is not just about training, Stanković claimed. It is also about camaraderie. "In our club we are like a big family, everybody loves and supports each other, and everybody wants to come to the club," she said.

If teamwork is one reason for Stanković’s success, another is her apprenticeship in the sport from an early. "I started when I was maybe eight-years-old, my friend started it and she liked it and asked me to go with her," she recalled. "It was a game and I liked it – and now, nine years later, I am here."

Another reason is self-belief. "We always believe in ourselves and in our club and in our country," Stanković said. "From the start, my coach Uroš Todorović was helping with my mental strength: He made me believe in myself.

"Before Milica’s gold in London, nobody knew taekwondo, they would say, ‘Is it fighting with sticks?' But after two Olympic medals – especially Milica’s in London – there was a boom for taekwondo in Serbia and now it is one of the most famous sports. Everyone knows Milica and Tijana and Dragan.”

Having finished school, Stanković now plans to study economics at university but will continue competing in taekwondo. "I want to see how high I can go," she said.

As a fighter, the Serb’s core assets are speed, power and aggression. "I am not very tall, you know, so I try to be the fastest I can be – I try to surprise my opponent with speed," Stanković said.

And speed generates power. "I am not going for the KO, but I practice strong and fact and explosive," she said. "I always try to do my best – best speed! Strongest! That is what you see in the fight!"

In technical terms, Stanković boasts clean and powerful technique; in fact, the high roundhouse kicks she unleashed in Muju could be taken from the pages of a taekwondo textbook.

With the new rules coming in, her preparations for the 2017 World Championships were strenuous, with heavy priority on conditioning. "It is physically harder now, you need to push each other," Stanković, who focussed on a long process of weight training and leg strengthening, said. "I think for me, the new rules are better; the new style is more aggressive - more fight! - and more interesting for the watchers."

Though Stanković insists that she still enjoys both the training and the fighting of the sport, her final in Muju presented a stern test: She found herself taking on the defending world champion and Rio 2016 bronze medalist, Thailand's Panipak Wongpattanakit. Besides her experience, Wongpattanakit also boasted a height and leg-length advantage.

"The plan was to attack and don’t give her the chance to make contact," Stanković said of her game plan. "The plan was to break her fight, break her position, to move her and when she raised her leg, I would kick.

"Before a fight I sit quietly and I visualise the match: I see myself fast and strong and kicking the opponent in the head and body and the match is mine. I try to imagine…"

In the final, first blood went to Stanković in convincing style. She landed a picture-perfect round kick to Wongpattanakit’s head for three points – before being forced off the mats by the Thai’s counter-charge for a one-point penalty. The first round ended 3-1 to Stanković. 

In round two, Wongpattanakit  stabbed forward with her long front leg, but not connecting. She dominated the centre of the mats and forced Stanković out of the area for another penalty point, 2-3, which is how the round ended.

In the third round, the reigning champion had to score, but as she attacked forward, she went down, taking the board to 4-2 in Stanković’s favour. Then, as the Serb lunged in for a punch attack, Wongpattanakit landed her hook kick to the head but fell, meaning her points were deducted for holding. The Thai coach appealed against the decision but was overruled, leaving Stanković 5-2 ahead.

The board now read 5-2 to the Serb. The Thai won back two points with a body kick, but Stanković landed another wicked roundhouse to the head that dropped Wongpattanakit. "I did not think about kicking," Stanković said. "I just did what comes."

The score was 9-4, then 9-5. With 30 seconds remaining, Wongpattanakit tried  to score to the head only for her effort to backfire when she tumbled. The score was 10-5 – and that was it. Stanković was Serbia's first-ever world champion.

"I could not speak, I could not move, I just started yelling," said. "I could not see anything or hear anything, I just thought, 'I did it! I did it!’' Many, many times earlier I had tried to imagine that moment - how it would feel. It was the most amazing feeling, ever. “

A day later, when the dust had settled, Stanković was able to look back upon about her taekwondo journey so far. The key learning, she claimed, is self-belief.

Taekwondo markets itself as being about self-defence, self-confidence and self-belief but Stanković was never 100 per cent certain about the latter. She is now. "I always told myself that hard work pays off," she said. "I was not sure – but now, I am down with that: It does."

The Iranian-born Asemani fled her native land for Belgium in 2012. The refugee arrived in Belgium on Christmas Day, 2012. It did not take long for the former Iranian international - Asemani had won a silver medal at the Asian Games in 2010, but did not make it to the London Olympics in 2012 – to find her way to the Belgium national taekwondo team, under coach Karim Dighou and performance director Laurence Rase, on December 28, 2012. With financial help from local federations, the refugee was able to re-start competing around Europe.

But like every athlete, her highest dream was the Olympics and Asemani, an asylum seeker, was stateless. A ray of hope shone when International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach announced the formation of a refugee team for Rio. That gave Asemani - then working as a postwoman in Belgium, while training part time - a last-chance opportunity to fight in Rio. "I was really happy as taekwondo is my life, and this was the one chance," she said. "After 17 years in taekwondo, it had been really difficult."

On April 13, she was granted Belgian citizenship - but it was not clear if she would be able to represent Belgium in Rio. At the European Qualification Tournament, Asemani - still fighting under the WTF flag - found herself facing off against Belgian athlete, de facto teammate and close friend Indra Craen. "It was a really emotional game," Asemani said. She emerged victorious in that match, and ended the European Qualification Tournament with a first place win in her weight class after defeating Finland's Suvi Mikkonen. The question now was whether she would fight for Belgium, or for the IOC's Refugee Team.

Her paperwork passed muster, and she was cleared to fight in Rio under the Belgian flag. "I got big help from the IOC and the WTF," she said. Asemani was ecstatic. "What can be more beautiful than to have a country at the Olympic Games?" she told AFP in an interview.

Her new passport meant an additional level of emotional support from her new nation. "I had lived four years in Belgium and been training with the Belgian team," she said. "The people of the country supported me and did everything for me and I got support from Karim and everyone. It was really good."

She fully bonded with the team. "It was really good, I had really good friends, we have grown together," she said. "It is not only sport, it is friendship and everything." Her special training partner in the lead up to the Olympics was none other than Craen.

There were significant differences in the training she went through in Iran and in Belgium. "In Iran, in the national team, we trained with girls," she said. "So, when I started in Belgium, it was really difficult to train with Karim and the boys." The famously tough training for Iran made her "strong", Asemani said, but in Belgium she found more leg control and more science in the programme.

Rio would prove to be a trial by fire. Asemani won her first two matches, then found herself facing 2012 London champion and eventual 2016 Rio gold medalist, Jade Jones of Team GB. The fiery Jones won the match, 7-2. Still, Asemani was through to repechage, where she narrowly missed out on a bronze medal against Egypt’s elastic-legged Hedaya Wahba, in golden point.

Asemani has mixed feelings about her Olympic result. "First, I had hoped to be in Rio; second, I wanted to do my best, and I think I did it," she said. But she admits that when she came home "it was too difficult for me, mentally". For four months, she stopped taekwondo.

"After Rio I could not accept that I had lost in golden point," she said. "Then I started my job in the post office - and I have really good friends in the post office - and they supported me and they said 'you must go one more time; you can do it; you are the best!' and that was really positive energy for me."

She returned to training and is now back on Team Belgium - this time, as a full-time athlete, training both mornings and afternoons. Currently, her sights are set on the World Championships in Muju, in June. "I want to be in the Worlds and I want to win and do my best as I did not fight in 2013 or 2015," she said. "It will be my first time on the Belgian Team."

How about Tokyo 2020? "I cannot speak about Tokyo, I think I will be too old, I want to see how my body is," said the 27-year-old. "I want to do taekwondo in my best condition and get the best result."

As for the future, post-Muju, she is mulling a return to study and a possible career in the Belgian police force.

As for the past, she has a lot of gratitude. "I want to say 'thank you' to everyone who helped me, I am really happy that I have met so many good people, and have good people around me," she said. "Especially Karim and Laurence and my boss at work - they were all really good for me."

How about a message for those refugees, displaced persons and asylum seekers worldwide who may consider following in her footsteps? "There are many people with hard life stories, but I think anybody can make their dreams," she said. "I want to say: 'try, always! Impossible is possible."

That result was thanks to the efforts of three woman warriors: gold medal winners Jade "The Headhunter" Jones, Bianca "Queen Bee" Walkden and Charlie Maddock.

Charlie Maddock? Yes, Charlie Maddock. Her name is not as well-known as double Olympic gold medalist Jones or world champion and Olympic bronze medalist Walkden, but her lack of recognition and experience did not stop the up-and-comer from beating the 2016 Rio Olympic champion in the female under-49 kilogram category, Korea’s So-hui Kim.

The Kim-Maddock battle on day one of the Grand Prix proved to be a clash not just of fighters, but also of fighting styles. Kim is a master counter-kicker, with a wily tactical game and excellent footwork. Maddock, on the other hand, is an aggressive fighter, with a never-step-back, take-no-prisoners style.

As the buzzer sounded for the first round, Maddock - totally unintimidated by Kim’s pedigree - surged out, fighting strongly and immediately pressuring her opponent. The Korean fought back gamely; she appeared to have decided that she would not let Maddock play her customary steamroller game. It was a lively round - but ended without a score. The second round kicked off with Maddock continuing to apply forward pressure. Kim reverted to her normal, evasive style, leaving Maddock to expend energy firing multiple kicks. But it was Kim, fighting more economically, who looked the more dangerous player: she failed to score by a whisker with two head shots. Round two ended scoreless.

Round three continued in the same vein with plenty of kicking, but no contact and no points. Surely, at this stage, Kim’s superior experience and ring craft would pay off?

Not necessarily. With just 12 seconds on the clock and the board empty, Maddock riposted a Kim attack with a reverse spinning turning kick to the head - then-swung her leg back into a round kick to the head, without putting her foot down. It was an extraordinary display of leg control, brilliant timing and spectacular technique. The scoreboard lit up, and the British girl was ahead 4-0.

In the final seconds Kim, a cagey, tactical fighter, was powerless to respond: her arsenal did not include the high-scoring techniques necessary to turn things round. The match ended with a well-deserved 4-0 win for the British girl who is clearly charmed in Azerbaijan - her previous big win had been a gold medal at the European Games in Baku in 2015.

Speaking the day after her win at the Grand Prix Final, the 21-year-old from the English town of Stoke-on-Trent proved pretty and petite, but fizzing with life. Her nickname is "pocket rocket" - a reference to small size and high energy.

Combative energy is in Maddock’s DNA. She got her start in combat sports at the tender age of five at home. Her parents had met through martial arts, and her father was a kickboxing instructor. "I kind of fell in love with it," she said. Years later, sensing his daughter’s potential, her father put her name forward for "Fighting Chance" - GB Taekwondo’s talent scouting program.

"Fighting Chance" plucks combat sports athletes from fields including taekwondo and kickboxing to see if they have what it takes to join the grueling, elite training program at Great Britain’s medal factory - the National Taekwondo Centre in Manchester.

That application was three years ago: Maddock was invited to join the elite and has not looked back since. Naturally, her parents were delighted to hear the news of her victory in Baku. "Dad and Mum were buzzing, they were over the moon," Maddock said. "Mum was screaming down the phone – it was a nice Christmas present."

Maddock’s favorite techniques are her "check kick" - a stabbing side kick - and her punch. "Coming from kickboxing, I like to punch," she said.  She also favours head shots, but the game-winning blow she deployed against Kim in Baku is a relatively new weapon in her arsenal. "The reverse turning kick is a funny one," she said. "I have been working on it for ages, so it was nice to get it in the last seconds."

As a player, she considers aggression as one of her strongest qualities. "I like to press the match down and wear the opponent down to the point where she thinks she has no other option." she said. "I am really strong and I am quite fast as well. Put the two together and they work really well."

However, she recognises that now, in premium-level competition, aggression is not enough. She has to add a layer of sophistication to her game. "I am working on being manipulative, on controlling distance and being calm and composed," she said. "Being aggressive is good - but not all the time."

Perhaps surprisingly, there is no boyfriend in her life - training does not leave much time for romantic distractions - and she lists her non-taekwondo hobbies only as "shopping". Regarding future plans, her main aim is Tokyo 2020. In the shorter term, she hopes to qualify for the World Taekwondo Championships in Muju 2017. On the way to Muju, she will be taking part in some smaller tournaments in the run up to the summer.

She thanks her sponsor, Phil Wettem Say Scaffolding - "without his sponsorship, some things would not have been achievable" - and the staff at Manchester, as well as her parents for bringing her up in combat sports. She also pays tribute to the golden girls of British taekwondo.

"To be honest, I never knew what the sport entailed at first, but when I came to the first phase of "Fighting Chance" then I saw that these girls are pretty good," she said. "I wanted to achieve what Jade and Bianca have achieved."

Having joined GB Taekwondo’s two national heroines on the podium in Baku, she may be on her way to doing exactly that.

"Everybody is extremely happy, they cannot wait for me to come," she said following Rio 2016. "But I will have only about 10 days’ summer break - then I start school on September 1."

Yes, you read that right. The Serbian who captured Olympic silver in a tight, hard-fought bout against Team Korea’s So-hui Kim in Rio de Janeiro is not a pro athlete, working out full-time, day in and day out: she is still a high-school student.

Which explains why she wants to extend her thanks not just to her coaching team, but also to her school buddies. "I had great support from my friends and my teachers, they helped me a lot during my period of absence," she said.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the upbeat 18-year-old wunderkind started taekwondo at a very tender age.

"When I was four, my parents took me to a taekwondo club and I fell in love with it at first sight – it is very attractive," Bogdanovic said. "In taekwondo, you have a lot of adrenaline as [the match] only takes six minutes - you have to withstand the pressure in a short period, you have to show yourself."

She did exactly that in Carioca Arena 3 on the first day of the four-day taekwondo competition. Fighting her way through the preliminaries, the number-eight seed shocked the punditry by ejecting the athlete who was widely considered the most dominant fighter in the sport: China’s previously unbeatable Jingyu Wu, a double Olympic medalist and the top seed in the women under-49kg category.

By the evening, Bogdanovic - whose previous biggest wins had been gold at the European Championships and bronze at the World Championships - had battled her way through to the finals. There, she would face off against Team Korea’s So-hui Kim, the seventh seed.

From the outset, the Serbian teenager, with her height advantage, fought forward, forcing the Korean to dance around the edge of the mats. But it was the more experienced Kim who was more accurate with her legs, winning the first round 2-1. The second continued the same way, with Kim displaying lively footwork to escape the Serbian’s attack. Bogdanovic, trying to land a punch, took a crescent kick to the head; the round ended 5-2.

In the third, the score was 4-6 to the Korean but Bogdanovic applied maximum pressure, and Kim visited the mats repeatedly. In the last 11 seconds, Bogdanovic was virtually chasing her target around the field of play. Kim held off this last-minute charge, taking the match and the gold medal, 7-6 – despite going down in what looked like the final second.

Some observers thought that Kim, who had racked up almost the maximum number of penalties for falling, should have been disqualified for her last-second fall - but not her opponent.

"I feel a bit sorry that everybody is talking about that last second, as I think that all people are allowed to make mistakes - even if you are a judge," said Bogdanovic. "It is not something that we should bother about too much."

Just being at the Olympic Games was an awesome experience for a schoolgirl - though at first she was underwhelmed.

"Since this is my first Olympic Games, I was not really impressed by the Olympic Village and everything, but as time went by, I was really overwhelmed by the atmosphere in the Serbian team, exchanging good, positive vibes between the athletes on the team," she said. "I enjoyed all that experience"

Of course, the highlight was winning the medal.

"It was a great experience in terms of my development because it is not only the day of competition, but all I had gone through before the competition, all the preparation," she said. "The day of competition is like the top of the cake - when you go to an exam you show what you were working for, so of course, I am happy and proud."

She rates her strengths as a fighter as flexibility and technical skill: her favored technique is that classic of taekwondo, the round kick to the head. In terms of her athletic personality, she is still a little unsure. "In this period of my life, since I am still 18, I am still developing and would describe myself only as ‘well disciplined,’” she said. "I just listen to my coach and try to be the best student."

Like many teens, her future plans are unclear. She has no boyfriend, but is "very interested and motivated to work with kids." She plans to go to university, but has not yet chosen a major.

Naturally, the sport she has been practicing for 14 years will remain central in her life.

"The best place to find me is our taekwondo club as I really feel great when I am in training - I feel myself there, I feel I belong there," she said. "Also, when I have time, I am always with friends from the club."

Fast forward over two decades and two continents and so it has proven - and then some.

Her son, Jaouad Achab, made it to world number one in the ultra-competitive men’s under 68kg category and narrowly missed a bronze medal for his adopted country of Belgium at Rio in 2016.

The junior Achab’s taekwondo journey started at the tender - very tender - age of three. As per her earlier vow, his mother had put his older brother and sister into taekwondo classes. When they came home, their tiny brother would insist on kicking and sparring with them.

Seeing his unusual attachment to the sport, his mother took him along to the club. The coach said he was too little to begin, but his mother pleaded with him to let this child with the “unnatural talent” give it a go. The coach finally relented, but said it would be for just one session. That session dragged into two, then three.

“People saw something special in me,” he said, looking back.

By the age of six, Achab was fighting in and winning competitions - first for his club, then for his city and then on the Moroccan national circuit. At the age of 13, he won the national cadet championship. However, for what he calls “political reasons” of the local Federation, he did not make it onto the national squad.

In 2009, Achab’s family decided to emigrate to Belgium for a better future for them all - and for more taekwondo opportunities for their wunderkind son. He started fighting immediately upon arrival on both the Belgian and European circuits. “I had some wins, some losses, as I had not had any international experience,“ he recalls. “But little by little, I understood international-level competition.”

He fought in the 2013 World Championships, winning two matches. In 2014, he became European champion. “That was my first dream to achieve,” he said. “After that another door opened: After the Europeans, I became a professional athlete with BLOSO, the Flemish Governmental sport organisation, which supported me a lot. From then on, I have got a lot of results.”

At the 2015 World Championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia, he found himself facing off against Mexico’s Joel Gonzalez, a two-time world champ, in the final. “I had to have full concentration, if I lost it for one second he could go very fast to my head,” Achab recalls. “I controlled the fight for first round, and the second round, I worked harder and it was 2-0 to me, then in the third he went to the head but at that moment I seized the advantage and scored to his head! It was 5-2 and I had to control the fight to the end - every second was important. I controlled it to the finish.”

The result was a World Championship title. “It was the most important competition of my life and the biggest day of my life,” he said, classing that - along with the European Championships and the World Universiade, which he also won in 2015 - as his top competitive achievements.

To overcome this, he suggests removing the sensor from the sole of the foot-sock, and toning down the power required to score points on the Protector Scoring System. “Then, you would see beautiful kicks - people would kick with more spinning and double kicks,” he said.

Outside the dojang, he likes to swim, play snooker and shop for clothes. He also reads a lot; the book he is currently working through is on achieving one’s goals and appreciating whatever one has. Looking beyond his competitive career, he expects to be a physiotherapist and coach taekwondo.

Although firmly in the Belgian camp following his award of citizenship, he is gratified when he hears that many sports fans in Morocco are wondering why he did not make ttheir national squad years previously, and are now urging his return.

Having made a personal and family odyssey from Morocco to Belgium in order to achieve success in taekwondo; having learned three new languages - French, Dutch and English - in the process. Achab now looks set to scale the pinnacle of the sport. His mother’s ambition was one contributing factor in his success. His “unnatural” precocious talent was another. To what other factors does this young man attribute his success so far?

“I am someone who always thinks positively,” he said. “Physically, people say I am small for the under 68kg category, but mentally, my mum says I have the heart and mind of a heavyweight.”

The 24-year-old Swede was competing in the female under 67kg category at the 2014 Queretaro World Taekwondo Grand Prix Final - a key gateway to qualification for Rio 2016. Even for an athlete with 13 years of experience in taekwondo, the day ahead, a walk through fire against three world-class opponents, as a daunting prospect.

“I was so nervous in the morning - I am never that nervous! - that I had to lie down before the first fight,” she said.

That fight was against long-time rival Nur Tatar of Turkey. “We are good friends and have been for a long time so it is hard to fight her in that way,” Johannson mused. “And she is a very, very strong fighter.”

From the starter bell, things did not go according to plan. The Swede fell behind in the scoring. But her mind was still in the game. “In the first and second rounds I was under, so [in the third] I had to pressure her and keep my focus,” she said. “I did a random turning kick to the body then snapped it to the face and got her in the last round with video replay. 

"Since the electronic hogu, it has been much more frontleg kicks and if you want to win, you need to do that, but I also like to double, to spin, to go high - I am a headhunter’"

That secured Johansson her first victory of the day and engaged all her gears. “After that, I felt so much better,” she said. “I usually need one fight to get in the mood.”

Her next opponent was Taiwan's Chia Chia Chuang, who Johansson had beaten 9-2 in the Manchester Grand Prix. “I knew I could beat her but I knew she wanted to beat me,” she said. “I went into the fight with the attitude that this is all in!”

Johansson’s second match would prove to be even more of a nail-biter than her first.

The Swede took and held a lead in the first two rounds then, in the dying seconds of the third, Chuang caught her in the head, evening the score. Johansson, momentarily discomfited, held her fire as the match resumed. “I was just thinking it was better to go to the golden point because my focus was somewhere else,” she said.

The drama implicit in the golden point system is something that taekwondo fans may relish, but is a devilishly nervy business for fighters. One mistake and it is all over. It speaks volumes for Johansson’s mental preparation that she consciously decided to settle matters via sudden death.

In golden point mode, the bout lasted a minute, then Johansson saw an opening and “took the shot,” slamming Chua in the body, earning a point and a place in the finals. “A very, very tight fight,” was Johanasson’s judgment. The battle for gold would be against another long-time rival, France’s Haby Niare - the world-ranked number one.

“I was nervous but in a good way, I was thrilled to be in top eight and then to be in the Grand Prix final,” Johansson said.

Niare is one of the trickiest female fighters in the sport. She has an arsenal of unusual kicks and a bag full of surprises . “But this time, she did not surprise me,” Johansson said. “Maybe the main reason is I was not as tired as her, and I could control the fight.”

Johansson looked stronger than the French girl from the get-go and proved tactically superior, controlling both distance and tempo. Ironically, this fight - Johansson’s last of the day - proved the easiest. She took the lead from the start, and took the match 4-2. “I was in the lead and kept her away,” she said.

After stepping down from the gold medal podium, she was visibly elated.

“I had three very tough fights against three very tough opponents, so I could not be happier - this is one of the happiest days of my life,” she said in the post-medal ceremony interview. “I was very tired at the end, but I kept control of the fight, I did my style.” Her style might be dubbed “orthodox taekwondo”, but with a wide technical range.

“I have a lot of weapons,” she said. “Since the electronic hogu, it has been much more front-leg kicks and if you want to win, you need to do that, but I also like to double, to spin, to go high - I am a headhunter.”

In the analysis of Team Sweden Coach Niklas Anderson, Johansson had put almost all the the parts in place: technical, tactical and physical.

“She is one of the most technical fighters; she does the ‘new style’ with the front-leg cut kicks, but she can also do all these turning kicks,” he said. “Tactically, she is very smart, with a good understanding of the sport, and physically she is very explosive, very strong. The only problem was the mental part.”

Johansson agrees. “When I am happy, I am happy; when I am not happy, I am very angry!” she said. “It is both a blessing and a curse to feel things so deeply.”

Recently, she has learned to settle her soaring- plunging emotions. ”I have a secret - I have a mental coach!” she said. “He makes me see it from a whole other perspective, it has been a lot of self-belief; confidence has been my problem.“

Anderson reckons the mental coaching has slotted the final piece into Johansson’s puzzle.

“She had been very up and down, but now she is much more balanced; even if she is behind on points she does not panic,” he said. “This has been the last step for her to take. She has been in five Grand Prix and in four finals, and that shows player stability.”

Even so, Johansson’s newly acquired head game could not stop the rising elation she felt after conquering the nerves prior to her first match. “I fight with joy because I love it, I don’t earn much money,” she said. “I feel joyful and aggressive and on fire.”

A full-time taekwondo athlete – she subsists on a Swedish Olympic scholarship and a salary from her club - based in the northern Swedish town of Skelleftea, located “up in the woods”.

Johansson is, like most of her rivals, firmly focused on Rio 2016 qualification. “I think that is when I will be on top of my career, I will be 26 at the time,” she said. “If I get there, I just want to do the best fights of my life.”

And post-2016?

“After the Olympics, we will see. maybe I will go for four more years, or have a family and have babies - I love babies!” she said. “If I can continue working in taekwondo, that would be a dream too; I love coaching my friends and my team.”  

The Yorkshire athlete battled on-the-mat adversity to become Great Britain's first-ever Olympic taekwondo medallist in 2008, and personal tragedy to claim her second world crown three years later.

In a discipline stacked with emerging young stars, it is testament to Stevenson's extraordinary will to win that she remained at the peak of her sport for almost 15 years.

Her proudest achievement came in 2011 when, with both her parents back home suffering from terminal illnesses, she won the world title in Gyeongju, South Korea.

"I was so close to not coming because I didn't want to leave my parents alone," said Stevenson after her victory. "But my family came together to help and I went out there to win it for them."

Stevenson had been tipped for stardom when she was still a teenager, winning the world junior title at the age of 15 and entering the senior ranks at a time when taekwondo was just being accepted into the Olympic programme.

She made her Olympic debut at Sydney in 2000, at the age of only 17, where she lost a bronze-medal match, and the following year she went to Jeju in South Korea, where she beat Chinese world number one Chen Zhong to add a senior world crown to her collection.

Although Stevenson was disappointed by a first-round defeat in her second Olympics at Athens in 2004, when the Beijing 2008 came around she was strongly favoured for gold, with only home hopeful and old foe Zhong seemingly standing in her way

The pair met in the quarter-finals, with Zhong apparently progressing with a tight 1-0 win, although video replays clearly showed Stevenson connecting with a two-point head-kick five seconds from the end.

After a furious team protest, the judges reversed the result in Stevenson's favour, but the Briton, ill prepared and roundly booed by the home crowd, was beaten in her next bout by Mexico's Maria Espinoza and had to settle for bronze.

It is a mark of Stevenson's incredible drive and ambition that while those around her celebrated her piece of sporting history, she headed home from Beijing in the firm belief that the gold medal had been hers for the taking.

Restarting her training programme back home in Manchester with renewed vigour, it seemed that nothing could get in the way of her path towards Gyeongju and onwards to home Olympic glory at London 2012, until she was given the devastating news about her parents.

In the months that followed her world title win, both Stevenson's parents passed away. In training, she was struck down by a cruciate ligament injury. Yet still she battled on. She had the honour of being selected to read the Olympic Oath on behalf of the athletes at the Opening Ceremony. 

But, her injury-truncated build up to the Games led to an early elimination.

In 2013, Stevenson announced her retirement from competition, and her intention to take up a coaching role in the Great Britain team. Shortly afterwards, World Taekwondo President Chungwon Choue announced that she been appointed to the world governing body's Executive Council.

Park had started to achieve at senior level in 2019 following her impressive victory in her home 2016 World Junior Championships in Burnaby.

At the 2019 World Championships in Manchester she won bronze in the women's under-57 kilograms featherweight class, being beaten in the semi-final by double Olympic champion Jade Jones, who went on to win gold.

Park went on to win silver at the Pan American Games in Lima, losing out to Zolotic.

Seeded third at Tokyo 2020, she won her opening match 25-15 against Stacey Hymer of Australia but then went out in the round-of-16 after an 18-7 defeat by Lo Chia-ling of Chinese Taipei. Zolotic, meanwhile, went on to take gold.

Park's build-up for the 2022 World Championships was exemplary, as she won the Pan American title again before taking silver at the Paris Open, losing there to China's Luo Zongshi.

But at the World Championships she encountered her nemesis, Lo, once again in her quarter-final match, which she lost 2-1.

When the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were postponed it had come as a huge relief to Park, due to her country's unilateral decision not to send a team because of concerns over the growing coronavirus pandemic.

"Canada was the first country that said it would not send a team," Park told World Taekwondo. "I thought I would have to watch it from home, it was heartbreaking - I'd just never imagined."

Her father and coach, Jae Park, added: "The gut-wrenching part was that Canada would not participate, it felt like somebody had kicked me in the stomach. I tried to put on a good face, but I have never felt those emotions before."

Skylar added: "It was a change in mindset - from a few months to a year. After speaking with my dad and coach, we were able to see it as an opportunity."

That chance to re-trench was especially welcome for a fighter who has been on a whirlwind journey since winning at Burnaby in 2016.

While lockdowns confined athletes across the world, Park was fortunate to have a full, en-suite training system outside her bedroom door. Not only does she live with dad-coach, but the Parks maintain a fully equipped basement dojang at home.

She even has two sparring partners in the form of her brothers.

"For the whole of corona, I have been training with dad and my two brothers," she said in 2020. "I was able to kick them around when they were younger but they have gotten stronger - now I am being kicked around!"

But while Park thrived within the lockdown, the pandemic was a huge strain for her father.

COVID-19 was calamitous for gym owners around the world, and teaching taekwondo is the Park family’s business and income source.

"It has been quite tough," Jae said. "When corona started in mid-February, we were shut down for three months; summer was better, but then we were in lockdown again."

Early in the crisis, the school pivoted swiftly to online classes and retained its student base, "but nobody was signing on".

The fact that the Parks were able to keep their heads above water is due to the solid heritage of their Winnipeg-based dojang.

The Tae Ryong Park Taekwondo and Hapkido Academy was established in 1993 by Jae and his father, Grand Master Deuk H. Park; the two have almost 100 years of experience in the martial arts.

The dojang has been widely featured in media and even appeared in a martial arts documentary hosted by Hollywood heroes Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris. 

"We are lucky, we do have a very established business," Jae said. "This is hurting us financially, but we are not in any danger of closing; I think all the hard work we put in for years and years and years has been really important to get through these times.

Meanwhile Skylar's technical approach underwent changes as she took on the highly technical, point-scoring kicks, tactics and tricks of the Olympic-level elite.

"Over the past four years I have been adapting to the kicks, and to using the knees in different ways," Skylar said.

"The mental game has been really big in the last few years. The tactical aspect - the mental toughness of the game."

Speaking in the aftermath of her world junior win, Skylar's father reflected for World Taekwondo on her mental strengths.

"Her mental game is weaker than more than 50 per cent of the athletes - and that is part of the plan! Athletes that have a strong mental game at the beginning do not emphasise the physical so much, as they get away with using strategy.

"In my opinion, strategy can come later on, but if you don’t develop a physical base it is too late - the body only gives you a certain amount of time to develop; the mind can always develop."

But the pandemic intervened in Sansores' career just as he was reaching another significant level.

Having won the heavyweight over-87 kilograms title at the Pan American Championships in 2018, the young athlete from Chetumal carried his form over to 2019 to produce an impressive performance at the World Championships in Manchester.

After defeating Azerbaijan's Rio 2016 champion Radik Isaev 7-2 in the quarter-final, the Mexican advanced to the final, where he lost 9-5 to Cuba's 2013 world champion Rafael Alba.

Soon afterwards he competed in the Pan American Games in Lima, where he earned bronze in the under-80kg category.

After a scant series of events in 2020 he added a silver to the Pan American Championships gold he had won in 2018 and swiftly earned revenge for his defeat in the final by beating gold medallist Jonathan Healy of the United States in the Mexico Open final in Cancun.

Having arrived in Tokyo with high hopes, however, he soon found himself back down at ground level as he lost his opening contest 6-4 to Croatia's 13th seed Ivan Sapina.

But if his first Olympics were a letdown, Sansores set about restoring his pride and prestige in 2022, which he began by regaining the Pan American Championship in Punta Cana, beating Healy in the final.

The season's highlight of the World Championships, in the Mexican city of Guadalajara, offered him the opportunity of earning a prestigious home victory - and he took it.

Once again he found himself up against Healy, this time in the quarter-final, but he earned a win to advance to a contest with Sajjad Mardani of Iran, the 2013 world silver medallist. He duly reached the final, where he earned gold with a 5-3, 4-0 win over Ivan Garcia of Spain.

Sansores followed up with a fabulous run in the Grand Prix final in Riyadh, reaching the final but losing to the London 2012 gold medallist Cheick Sallah Cisse of Ivory Coast.

The Mexican can build again and look forward to Paris 2024 with well-founded optimism.

Zolotic - born in Florida to parents of Bosnia and Herzegovina heritage - had already made clear her huge potential in an Olympic context by taking silver at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympics, losing by a single point, 17-16, to Russia's Elizaveta Ryadninskaya.

In 2019, she won two World Taekwondo Grand Prix events, including the final in Moscow, and earned victory at the Pan American Games in Lima.

At Tokyo 2020, seeded seventh, she lived up to all expectations and beyond in a featherweight under-57 kilograms tournament thrown open by the shock defeat of Britain's double and defending champion Jade Jones, by the former Iranian athlete Kimia Alizadeh, competing for the Refugee Olympic Team.

In the wake of her historic victory over the ROC's Tatiana Minina, Zolotic announced that she wanted to be "an inspiration for young girls".

USA Taekwondo declared its intention to "dominate" in the sport by 2028, when it will compete in an Olympics on home turf in Los Angeles, and Zolotic was in the vanguard of those ambitions.

"I try to tell people I want to be an inspiration for young girls and young athletes - just everything I've wanted and worked so hard for - it's like a legacy I'm leaving behind," Zolotic told Good Morning America.

"It was just like walking through and seeing how far I could push myself through each match.

"It's that little eight-year-old in me that's like 'c'mon, we can do this', pushing me through these matches.

"Whether you call it cockiness or just being prepared I don't know, but I was on it."

Speaking of her future hopes, she added: "Another gold medal at the next Olympics - 2024 I'm coming - or the World Championships."

Since that post-Tokyo high, however, her rising ambitions have been checked by injury.

First came a serious problem with her left knee which resulted in a shattered patella that required surgery.

For nearly eight months she could not kick or punch and considered walking away from the mat.

"Especially with my Olympic title," she said to Olympics.com. "I had just won it and I had to go through this and I kind of lost a sense of who I was.

“I was like, 'well, I don't deserve this title. I'm not even competing. I'm not training. Nobody even knows who I am anymore'. It's kind of like this uphill, downhill battle when I was going through that.

"I was thinking about quitting, like, why would I even get up and do this again? Finding my motivation again was like a really big one.

"I was living at home, my mom was helping because I couldn't walk. Having my family there was a lot easier, but not being able to do something you used to do every single day for like 10 hours of your day set my schedule off completely.

"My coach (Gareth Brown) pushed and encouraged me to come back, I wouldn't be here without him."

She recovered sufficiently to perform with honour at the World Championships in November in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she was beaten in the quarter-finals by Chinese Taipei’s eventual silver medallist Lo Chia-ling. 

But then a new challenge arose in the form of another injury - and she had to go under the knife again to repair the labrum in her right hip.

"I'm kind of religious, and I really believe that God put me on this path for a reason," Zolotic said in March 2023. 

"This happened so other things now can happen too."

Zolotic's life slowed down, as she was not training six hours a day but was sidelined after her most recent operation.

She intends to recover to defend her gold at Paris 2024.

The hip surgery, she hopes, will take care of a long-standing issue that has impeded competing and training and left her in constant pain.

"There always have been kicks I could not do, or moves I knew would be bad for me, so I just got around things," she said. "It's just what I had to deal with. Now, I hope that is behind me, and I can completely compete the way I am capable of.

"The thing I am doing now are part of the struggles that will lead me to winning my next gold medal. And that one, in Paris, will be for me. Mine. It's selfish in the best way. I intend to enjoy all of this journey to get to the top again.

"I am working hard to make the next moment for me, and I know that will make it even more satisfying."

Her women's under-53 kilograms bantamweight victory at the World Championships in Guadalajara, Mexico in November 2022 was earned in dramatic fashion. 

Zuo Ju of China was seconds away from claiming gold at the Centro Acuático CODE Metropolitano, only for Greenwood to take the verdict in a sensational finish to the deciding round.

After recovering from losing the first round to send the match into a decider, Zuo soon established a 3-0 lead.

Greenwood then landed a punch with seven seconds left, only for Zuo to cancel that out with a kick to the body to move 5-2 in front.

With time running out, Greenwood pulled off a stunning back kick to the body.

Zuo was also penalised for stepping out of the mat, giving Greenwood a 6-5 lead before her body shot was upgraded to a four-pointer following a successful video review.

The decision by the judges sparked jubilant scenes in the American camp.

It capped an incredible day for Greenwood, who had ended home hopes of another gold with victory over Fabiola Guadalupe Villegas Machorro in the quarter-finals.

She then upset double Olympic medallist Tijana Bogdanović of Serbia in the last four.

Bogdanović collected a bronze medal, along with Ivana Duvančić of Croatia, while Zuo had to settle for silver.

Greenwood, who established herself in the sport by winning the US Open cadet title in 2016, did not move up to the senior ranks until 2021.

She made an immediate impact as she won the under-53kg Pan-American title in Cancun, Mexico, earning a 20-13 win over Brazil’s Leonor Dias de Lima in the final.

In 2022 she retained her title at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, winning her final against Cuba’s Tamara Robles Reve.

That proved to be ideal preparation for her startlingly effective World Championship campaign in Guadalajara, which established her as one of the sport's leading young talents.

Last month, she secured the greatest triumph of her career so far as she won the women's flyweight (under-49 kilograms) category title at the 2022 World Taekwondo Championships in Guadalajara.

Souza's performance delighted the home crowd at the Centro Acuático CODE Metropolitano, as she became one of the three home athletes to take global gold.

Her route to the top was long and arduous, however.

After a straightforward win over Hong Kong's Lam Siu Wai in the round-of-32, Souza had a tough match against Australia's Saffron Tambyrajah, progressing thanks to a one-point margin.

Her quarter-final win over Israel's Avishag Semberg required all three rounds, earning her the dubious privilege of meeting Panipak Wongpattanakit, Thailand's world number one, defending and Olympic champion, for a place in the final.

But with the home crowd's help, the Mexican fighter prevailed over three rounds, winning the last 5-4.

Her opponent in the final, China's Guo Qing, responded to losing the first round 4-3 by winning the second 8-4, but Souza prevailed thanks to an 8-2 scoreline in the final round.

Souza, who was born in Zapopan but considers Tijuana her home, first made her mark internationally in 2016, when she won bronze at the World Taekwondo Junior Championships.

She added golds at the 2018 Barranquilla Central American and Caribbean Games, and, a year later, at the Pan American Games in Lima.

Also in 2019, she participated in the World Taekwondo Championships at Manchester, reaching the flyweight quarter-finals, beating Semberg en route before losing to China's double Olympic champion Wu Jingyu.

In the Bulgarian capital Labastida secured gold in the men's under-41 kilograms category and earned the title of male most valuable player for the whole Championships. 

"Everyone is very happy, they have given me several celebrations," the 12-year-old told World Taekwondo. 

"Some in Mexico City and others in Guadalajara, the last one was in our school. 

"I feel very happy and grateful to God for this achievement.

"I never imagined it, it was a great surprise, the prizes for the best athlete in a sporting event is something that I saw in other sports and since I was a child I dreamed of being the best in the world. 

"Now I feel so happy to win this MVP. I can't believe it. I was awarded as the best cadet in the world in all categories.

"Having participated in the World Championships has been the best and greatest experience in my life, listening to the national anthem of my country is something I always dreamed of and I finally achieved it. 

"None of this would be possible without the support of my family and my brother who is my great idol, Damián Cortes the Kid Azteca."

While in Sofia, Labastida earned the admiration of many fans with his exciting and energetic style.

"That has always been my style," he said. "A 100 per cent combative style. I have always fought that way, strong and hard against my opponents, when my opponents are stronger and more difficult, the harder I try to fight."

As he continues to move up in the sport, he will need this fighting spirit if he is going to achieve his goals, which are very clearly defined in his mind.

"Win the next World Championship, the Pan American Championship and be an Olympic medallist in the Youth Olympic Games," he said.

The latest addition to its Olympic medal collection came courtesy of double world champion Rafael Alba.

Alba entered the postponed Tokyo 2020 Games as third seed and world champion in the men's over-80 kilograms heavyweight category, but suffered a shock 11-8 defeat in his first bout against Dejan Georgievski.

The North Macedonian, seeded 14th, went on to earn silver, losing 15-9 in the final to Vladislav Larin of the Russian Olympic Committee.

Alba, meanwhile, had to pick himself up and contemplate his route forward to a place on the podium.

An 8-2 win over the Ivory Coast's Seydou Gbane in the first round of the repechage took him into one of the bronze medal matches, where he defeated China's Sun Hongyi 5-4.

Alba will carry his Olympic ambitions on to the Paris 2024 Games.

He first hit the heights as a 19-year-old, earning world gold at the 2013 World Championships in Puebla, Mexico, in the men's under-87kg middleweight class.

By the time he got to the 2019 World Championships in Manchester, Alba was contesting the heavyweight class - and he dominated it.

To earn his first world gold in 2013, he beat China's Ma Zhaoyong 4-2. Six years later he reached the middle step of the podium in Manchester with a 9-5 win over Mexico's Carlos Sansores.

In his semi-final, Alba had disposed of Brazil's Rio 2016 bronze medallist Maicon Andrade. Alba's own progress at those Olympics was halted in the quarter-finals when he met Uzbekistan's 2015 world champion Dmitriy Shokin, who progressed on superiority after the score had been tied at 1-1.

Those 2015 world finals at Chelyabinsk in Russia had seen Alba's defence of his middleweight title earn him another medal - bronze this time after he had been beaten 7-6 in the semi-final by eventual gold medallist Radik Isayev of Azerbaijan.

Later that year, Alba had taken the Pan American Games title, beating Columbia's Carlos Rivas 11-4 in the final.

But at the season's concluding Grand Prix final in Manchester, he was frustrated in the final as he lost 2-1 to the man who would beat him at the following year's Olympics - Shokin.

The 2017 World Championships in Muju saw Alba beaten in the round of 32.

After regaining the world title he earned silver at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, losing 13-6 in the final to Jonathan Healy of the United States.

And before coronavirus lockdown halted competition, he secured his place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games by winning the Pan American Olympic qualifier in Heredia, Costa Rica, beating Healy 30-6 in the final.

He was heading towards the Olympic podium.

"Canada was the first country that said it would not send a team," Park told World Taekwondo. "I thought I would have to watch it from home, it was heartbreaking - I’d just never imagined."

Her father and coach, Jae Park, added: "The gut-wrenching part was that Canada would not participate, it that felt like somebody had kicked me in the stomach. I tried to put on a good face, but I have never felt those emotions before."

Skylar reflected: "It was a change in mindset - from a few months to a year. After speaking with my dad and coach, we were able to see it as an opportunity."

That chance to re-trench was especially welcome for a fighter who has been on a whirlwind journey since winning at the World Junior Championships on home turf in Burnaby, Canada, in 2016.

She has since won medals at three Grand Prix events, two President Cups and multiple Opens, but admits: "It’s been a crazy whirlwind since Burnaby - crazy! The competitions, pre-COVID, were non-stop.

"So it is nice to have such a long period of time to focus on the things I had to. Being a younger athlete I have lots of room to grow, so the chance to work on my weaknesses has been really, really good."

While lockdowns have confined athletes across the world, Park has been fortunate to have a full, en-suite training system outside her bedroom door. Not only does she live with dad-coach, but the Parks maintain a fully equipped basement dojang at home.

She even has two sparring partners in the form of her brothers.

"For the whole of corona, I have been training with dad and my two brothers," she said. "I was able to kick them around when they were younger but they have gotten stronger - now I am being kicked around!"

But while Park has thrived within the lockdown, the pandemic has been a huge strain for her father.

COVID-19 has been calamitous for gym owners around the world, and teaching taekwondo is the Park family’s business and income source.

"It has been quite tough," Jae said. "When corona started in mid-February, we were shut down for three months; summer was better, but now we are in lockdown again."

Early in the crisis, the school pivoted swiftly to online classes and retained its student base, "but nobody was signing on."

The fact that the Parks have been able to keep their heads above water is due to the solid heritage of their Winnipeg-based dojang.

The Tae Ryong Park Taekwondo and Hapkido Academy was established in 1993 by Jae and his father, Grand Master Deuk H. Park; the two have almost 100 years of experience in the martial arts.

The dojang has been widely featured in media and even appeared in a martial arts documentary hosted by Hollywood heroes Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris.

"We are lucky, we do have a very established business," Jae said. "This is hurting us financially, but we are not in any danger of closing; I think all the hard work we put in for years and years and years has been really important to get through these times."

Meanwhile Skylar’s technical approach has undergone changes as she has taken on the highly technical, point-scoring kicks, tactics and tricks of the Olympic-level elite.

"Over the past four years I have been adapting to the kicks, and to using the knees in different ways," Skylar said.

"The mental game has been really big in the last few years. The tactical aspect - the mental toughness of the game."

Speaking in the aftermath of her world junior win, Skylar’s father reflected for World Taekwondo on her mental strengths.

"Her mental game is weaker than more than 50 percent of the athletes - and that is part of the plan! Athletes that have a strong mental game at the beginning do not emphasise the physical so much, as they get away with using strategy," he said.

"In my opinion, strategy can come later on, but if you don’t develop a physical base it is too late - the body only gives you a certain amount of time to develop; the mind can always develop."

Now, however, his daughter has had unexpected time to attend to both the mental and physical aspects - and that can surely only help her prospects at the Games that are now scheduled to start on July 23…

The 30-year-old from Abilene in Texas, who competes in the under-67 kilograms category, has reconfigured her training programme in accordance with shift of the Games to next summer.

"My coach created a new training plan that is more suited for the longer time-frame at hand rather than what was once only three months' worth of work," she told World Taekwondo.

"Now, we have the time to truly go backwards - to fine-tune the basics and build on to our overall foundation in technique and fighting tactics.

"We have the time to rest and recover from the injuries inquired from the past several years of competition and the non-stop lifestyle of a professional taekwondo athlete.

"This is the first time where we have the opportunity to solely train without any interruptions, therefore, I am very excited in the next several months ahead."

McPherson, who now lives in Miami-Dade County in Florida, has been able to continue training with her room mate.

"We had been traveling together before the pandemic and now take the precautions of only seeing each other and no one else."

She added: "I want to remind people that we are resilient. 

"For our entire athletic careers we have faced times of hardship and uncertainty. 

"This time is no different as we have felt fear, anxiety, and the unknown before, yet still we were able to find a way amidst it."

McPherson made her name by winning an unexpected bronze medal at the London 2012 Olympics, having won Pan American Games silver the previous year.

But there was disappointment for her at the Rio 2016 Olympics, where she lost in her first-round match.

McPherson resumed her normal level of activity the following year as she won silver at the World Championships in Muju, and in 2018 she won the Pan American Championships and Pan American Open.

In 2019 she retained her Pan American Open title and then won silver at the Pan American Games in Lima, losing 9-8 to Brazil’s Milena Titoneli Guimaraes.

She rounded off the season by reaching the Moscow Grand Prix final, where she was beaten 7-4 by the Ivory Coast’s Rio 2016 bronze medallist Ruth Gbagbi.

In the COVID-impacted year of 2020, she has managed to add another gold to her collection, having beaten Petra Stolbova of the Czech Republic in the final of the German Open.

Rodriguez, who will turn 30 in December, announced her talent as a 19-year-old when she earned a silver medal at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Mayaguez in the under-67 kilograms class. The following year she earned bronze in the same category at the Pan American Games in Guadalajara.

A silver medal at the 2012 Pan American Championships at Sucre followed, this time in the over-67kg category, and she repeated that effort at the 2014 version of the Championships.

For Rodriguez, 2016 was a big year as she won the Pan America Olympic Games qualification tournament in Aguascalientes.

Her Rio 2016 preparations went very well. She won silver at the German Open followed by gold at the Pan American Championships in Queretano, and bronze in the Pan Am Open at the same venue.

She had high hopes in Rio as she entered the over-67kg heavyweight competition as the eighth seed - but was beaten 5-1 in the preliminary round by Morocco's ninth seed Wiam Dislam.

In 2018 she upgraded her Pan Am Open bronze to silver in Spokane, before returning to Rio with more success as she took bronze in the Military World Championships.

The following season was relatively muted for her as she was beaten in the second round at the World Championships in Manchester, but 2020 has been a story of success - albeit truncated by the coronavirus pandemic.

After opening by winning the Mexican Open title, Rodriguez followed up with a bronze medal at the German Open in Hamburg before moving on to the Pan America Olympic qualifier in Heredia.

Victory there has set her up for an Olympic challenge that she will be hoping expunges some of the disappointment of her showing in Rio four years ago.

The 23-year-old from Justinopolis, making his Olympic debut, took bronze in the over-80 kilograms heavyweight category.

He was only the second Brazilian to win an Olympic taekwondo medal following the bronze earned by Natalia Falavigna in the women's over-67kg heavyweight category at the Beijing 2008 Games. 

Siqueria beat the United States' 2011 Pan American bronze medallist Stephen Lambdin in the preliminary round before losing his quarter-final 6-1 to eventual silver medallist Abdoul Issoufou of Nigeria.

But he recovered his impetus in the repechage, earning a 5-2 win over France's M’bar N-diaye and then winning his bronze medal match against Britain's Mahama Cho 5-4.

The previous year, Siqueria had warmed up for his big Olympic moment by winning the Rio Open and taking bronze in the heavyweight class at the Summer Universiade in Gwangju, South Korea.

In 2017 he added a silver Universiade medal to his collection but in the World Championships that year he hit the barrier of Issoufou once again in the quarter-finals, with the Nigerian going on to take the heavyweight title.

Further significant medals came his way in 2018 as he won bronze at the Pan American Championships in Spokane and the Military World Championships in Rio.

In 2019 he regained his place on a global podium as he took over-87kg bronze at the World Championships in Manchester, beating home athlete Cho 15-12 in the quarter-final before losing 17-13 in the semi-final to eventual winner Rafael Alba of Cuba.

Shortly afterwards he added a bronze from the Pan American Games in Lima in the over-80kg category before winning the Sofia Grand Prix.

His only major competition before lockdown arrived in 2020 also saw him in the medals as he came second at the US Open in Kissimmee, Florida, losing to Mexico's world silver medallist Carlos Sansores.

Such was the depth of quality for Mexico in the over-67 kilograms heavyweight women's class that the national federation arranged a best-of-three play-off between the 32-year-old Espinoza – gold medallist at the Beijing 2008 Games, bronze medallist at London 2012 and silver medallist at Rio 2016 – against rising 26-year-old talent Acosta.

With the fighters seventh and eighth in the world rankings, respectively, the Mexican Taekwondo Federation had struggled to choose between them and organised the competition to decide in February this year.

Espinoza won the first bout but Acosta – the Pan American Games gold medallist and world bronze medallist in 2019 – then defeated her in the next two.

Having won that momentous contest, the following month's Pan American Taekwondo Olympic Qualification Tournament in Costa Rica proved a more straightforward exercise for Acosta as she secured her place in Tokyo with a 9-4 win over Cuba's Yamitsi Carbonell, followed by a 15-5 victory over Keyla Avila Ramirez of Honduras.

Acosta can now look forward to challenging for a senior Olympic medal to add to the one she won at the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore, where she took silver after the narrowest of defeats in the final, going down 2-1 to China's Shuyin Zheng – who would go on to win the Rio 2016 title.

Acosta's senior career got underway the following year, and she marked it with victory in the Trelleborg Open before contesting her first World Championships at Gyeongju.

Two years later, aged 19, she returned to the World Championships arena in her home city of Puebla and delighted spectators by taking an exceptional silver medal in the heavyweight class, losing 8-3 in her final against Russia's Olga Ivanova. 

She followed up in 2014 by winning another medal on home soil as she took the Pan American Championships title in Agualascientes, beating Katherine Rodriguez Peguero 4-2 in the final.

But her hopes at the 2015 World Championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia, were halted at the quarter-final stage.

And, after Espinoza had taken the Mexican qualifying place for Rio 2016, Acosta was frustrated once again in global competition as she made another quarter-final exit at the 2017 World Championships in Muju, South Korea.

Two years further on, however, at the 2019 World Championships staged in Manchester, she returned to the global podium, taking bronze after being defeated in her semi-final by the eventual home-town winner, Bianca Walkden.

Acosta maintained her momentum at the Pan American Games in Lima later that summer, where she won gold after defeating Colombia's Gloria Mosquera 10-5.

The United States-based welterweight fighter, who lives in Plantation, Florida, competed for the US during her earlier career.

This year, she became eligible to compete for Haiti, and an outstanding performance at the Pan American Olympic qualification tournament at Heredia in Costa Rica in March saw her claim a place at the Tokyo Games.

Victories over Colombia's Katherine Dumar Portacio and Madelyn Rodriguez of the Dominican Republic earned her one of the two available spots for the under-67 kilograms along with the Brazilian favourite, Milena Titoneli, the 2019 world bronze medallist.

Although Haiti first entered the Olympics in 1900, the number of athletes representing the country at the Games has generally not reached double figures.

That mark was attained at the Rio 2016 Games, where there were 10 representatives in seven sports – although only one in taekwondo, 17-year-old Aniya Louissant. 

For the Tokyo Games, however, Haiti is so far sending just one athlete in one sport – and that is Shipman.

The qualifier was only Shipman's third experience in senior competition after she took bronze at the US Open at Kissimmee, Florida as part of her preparation – before doubling up to win the youth final 20-0.

At the start of 2020 she earned bronze at the Turkish Open.

"I am a senior in high school, and have been accepted to the University of Miami to study medicine," she told mundotaekwondo.com after the Costa Rica qualifier.

"I started taekwondo when I was nine-years-old, and I started training with my current coach Mohamed Ali Melghagh in 2017.

"I train six days a week. 

"I joined team Haiti in 2019, after I earned my spot by fighting in nationals which took place in Cap-Haitien Haiti."

The young man from Comonfort ended 2019 with two prestigious silver medals added to his collection in the under-58 kilograms flyweight category – one from the World Championships in Manchester and another from the Pan American Games in Lima.

But he was unable to carry that wave of success forwards at the Olympic qualifiers held in March this year in Heredia, where he was beaten 32-26 in the semi-final by Colombia's Jefferson Fernandez Ochoa, who claimed one of the two flyweight spots for Tokyo along with Lucas Guzman of Argentina.

Plaza's emergence as a world class force in the sport has come as no surprise given his bronze-medal winning performance in the under-45kg class at the 2012 World Junior Championships in Sharm El Sheikh. 

He was beaten in the semi-final by Russia's Boris Krasnov, who went on to take the gold and five years later won the title at the Summer Universiade.

Plaza's senior career took a dramatic upturn in 2018 when he won the Pan American Championships title in Spokane, Washington – having beaten Ochoa 19-12 in his opening bout.

Having opened 2019 with consecutive gold medals in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Mexican Open events, Plaza had an inspired run in the World Championships, going all the way to the final before losing 25-9 to South Korea's Jun Jang.

He reached another major international final soon afterwards at the Pan American Games in Lima, losing 19-17 in the final to Guzman.

Another Mexican Open title in Jalisco this year set him up for the Olympic qualifiers, but that experience was to end in frustration. 

Plaza has youth, and talent, on his side as he now seeks to re-establish himself at the highest level in his category.

On day four of the WTF World Taekwondo Junior Championships in Burnaby, Canada, Winnipeg native Skylar Park delivered exactly that.

The final of the female under-59kg category pitted Park against the smaller Yen Hsin Yeh of Chinese Taipei. Almost at the opening bell, the hometown girl went one up with a body kick, prompting a fierce firefight as Yeh fought back. 

But it was Park who extended her lead to 2-0, then 3-0 - the last with a thwacking round kick to the body that drew gasps and cheers. Some messy clinchwork followed before regular action resumed. Both girls then exchanged a series of head shots. The round ended 3-0 to Park.

In the second, Park again wasted no time, scoring with a fast head kick - then another – before tumbling to the mats after Yeh connected with a head kick of her own. The board surged to 12-3, but the lass from Chinese Taipei was still in the fight. 

She counterattacked with determination - but it was the Canadian fighter who landed yet another head kick. By now, she was looking very, very dominant. A break in the torrid action was called, with the bout at 15-4, as Park’s torso armour was re-secured. 

Park landed a picture-perfect side kick that did not register on the PSS, then was forced out of the ring. Both girls clinched and fired head kicks, the two fighters’ techniques almost cancelling each other out. But Park’s technical mastery and excellence of technique were becoming evident - she scored with a side kick from the extreme close range. The round ended 16-5.

As the bell rang on round three, Yeh had everything to fight for. Both girls were now fighting using the entire ring to manoeuver - with Park again unleashing a textbook side kick. Then Yeh landed an out-of-nowhere head kick, raising her score to 8-16. There was a brief slowdown - the prior tempo had been too fast - then Park’s cut kick scored again for 17-8. 

Yeh was looking desperate. She hopped across the floor, flicking our leading leg on the high line, hunting Park’s head; the Canadian did well to evade. Then - suddenly - it was all over: the Canadian impacted with a head kick that gave her the victory on a 20-8 point difference. It had been a fine performance of clean and stylish taekwondo that delighted both the crowd and her team mates.

Park bowed to the crowd, dashed to the stands, grabbed a national flag and stormed back onto the stage - where a duo of beaming Mounties, in full dress uniform, joined her for an impromptu (and unscheduled) victory celebration. And if the ringside hug between Park and her coach looked particularly tight, it was - they are also daughter and father.

Park’s seizure of a World Championship title was, perhaps, predestined: she has not two, but three generations of taekwondo blood running through her veins. The daughter of Master Jae Park (her coach) she is the granddaughter of Master Deuk-hwa Park, who migrated from Korea to Canada in 1977; out of his 10 grandchildren, nine hold black belts. The family runs a successful dojang in Winnipeg.

With this pedigree, it is not surprising that Park, 17, has been doing taekwondo "since I could walk." Her father recognised that she had the strong mind that the sport demands as early as age three. Today, she wears a third-dan black belt.

The gold-medal match went according to plan. "It was just to go there and fight with confidence, to fight how I know I can," she said. "The plan was to go in strong from the beginning."

She plans to transition up to seniors, and has already gone toe-to-toe with world-class senior competition at the Dutch and Belgian Opens in 2015. In the Dutch competition, she faced off against 2016 Olympic silver medalist Eva Calvo-Gomez, losing just 6-3. For a junior to lose by such a small margin to one of the top players in the game suggests stratospheric potential.

With junior ranking points now being transferable to the seniors, she expects to be competing in the elite Grand Prix series next year. 

"In the Olympic division at under-57kg, she will be in the top 15," her father said, confidently. As for her ambitions in the sport she is - naturally - looking over the eastern horizon toward the Tokyo in 2020.

But life will not just be taekwondo. She also hopes to go to university next year, though she is not yet clear on what her major will be. "Something sport related," she said. She also enjoys soccer and golf, but despite her good looks and weapons-grade physique, has no boyfriend.

In terms of techniques, she said: "I like my side kick as a base - but I like to do fancier kicks when I can." In terms of physique, her father reckons his daughter is perfectly engineered for the sport. "Her body is made for taekwondo: she is long and lean, she has fast-twitch muscles - she has all the attributes to succeed in taekwondo," he said. "And she can do all her techniques on both sides."

How about her mind game? Her father comes back with a surprising answer.

"Her mental game is weaker than more than 50 percent of the athletes - and that is part of the plan!," Park Sr confided. "Athletes that have a strong mental game at the beginning do not emphasise the physical so much, as they get away with using strategy. In my opinion, strategy can come later on, but if you don’t develop a physical base it is too late - the body only gives you a certain amount of time to develop; the mind can always develop."

"I’m excited to see how poomsae is growing," Munoz said. "There has definitely been a rise in competition over the past two years. I hope that poomsae will be included in the Olympics."

While there are, as yet, no indications that poomsae will get the Olympic nod, the growth was very clear to see at the 10th WTF World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships, in Lima, Peru, which boasted a record number of athletes and teams.

Munoz took gold in the individual freestyle – defending the gold medal she had won two years earlier. Having now won gold at two consecutive World Championships and many national titles, Munoz is now a well-established name in freestyle poomsae.

She trains six hours a day and is always pushing herself to improve. "I worked hard on jumping higher," she said. "I wanted to showcase getting comfortable in the air and not being afraid of going higher."

Munoz choreographs her own routines with her mother. Only then does she share them with her coach, Barbara Brand, to check what looks good and what does not - the end result is 80 per cent of her final programme comes from herself. This allows her to focus her routine on what she believes are winning elements such as soaring jumps and cartwheels - while making sure the routine is "practica" and not too "crazy".

Munoz believes it’s important there are effective fighting applications in her routine: "That’s part of tradition." But it is the freedom freestyle offers her that really attracts her to the sport. "Freedom to express yourself, with your music choice," she advised. "If you want the audience to feel something, you put in emotion."

At just 20, Munoz continues to hope that one day she will have the chance to express herself and light up the audience on the Olympic stage.

Her opponent on the day was The Netherlands’ Reshmie Oogink.

“I knew that Oogink was going to be a very complicated fight, I had never fought with her before,” Espinoza said. “But I wanted a lot to fight with her, I like to fight with the best!”

As the match got underway, Oogink proved herself unintimidated by Espinoza’s thunderous support and seized an early lead. Espinoza shot back with her patented overhand counterpunch, a technique that is rare in kick-heavy taekwondo, but which Espinoza has made her own.

But by the third round, the Dutch fighter was still ahead on the scoreboard. With the seconds ticking away, Espinoza launched an all-out attack, firing off a series of spinning back kicks in an effort to claw back points with the high-scoring, but risky technique.

It was in vain. She was unable to connect and the match ended 4-2, with Oogink taking the gold and Espinoza the silver. 

“I got a little disconcerted by the two points in the first round and physically I did not feel too good to overcome that obstacle,” the Mexican said in her post-match analysis.

Even so, winning silver at this elite level of competition is hardly anything to be ashamed of. “I am very happy with the result,” she said before conceding, “But I wanted gold.”

The 27-year-old is a national heroine in Mexico, with an Olympic gold from Beijing 2008, an Olympic bronze from London 2012 and the gold medal at the 2007 World Championships under her 2nd dan black belt.

Obviously competitive, Espinoza is a formidable presence. Striking looking - with wide, olive-skinned cheekbones and dark, fierce-looking eyes - she seems intensely focused, speaks emphatically and moves with grace and power.

In terms of physique, she admits that she is not as tall and leggy as many of her competitors, and her physique provides a clue to her fighting style: Espinoza is a power hitter.

So where does her famed counterpunch come from?

“I used to box when I was very young,” she said. That is where the technique comes from - she continues to hone it on the dummy - but she says she does not know where she got the timing to land it. It may be something to do with where she comes from: She hails from the same state as Julio Cesar Chavez, Mexico’s most famous boxer (a sport Espinoza no longer practices, but likes to watch).

Yet Espinoza is not a one-technique fighter. She also likes to use spinning back-kicks, and a chain of left-right-left-right turning kicks to the body - “bap-bap-bap-barrap!” in her own words. Asked to describe her personal style of taekwondo, she thinks for a moment before responding: “I am aggressive but I take care of points at the same time, I don’t lose control. I am very dangerous!”

Her year-round training includes circuit training and special physical training to strengthen legwork, such as kicking against an elastic restraint. Espinoza’s training encompasses both traditional and games-style taekwondo.

In the run-up to a competition, she downgrades the strength training and works more on speed and kicking “to feel light, relaxed and elastic”, while wearing the specific PSS to be used.

But her powerful style of taekwondo is not best suited to the current format, which favors light, touch contact off the front leg, she fretted.

“I have a little problem with the new [electronic scoring] systems compared to the old style; with any touch, the sensor makes points,” she said. “I am a strong kicker but normally the PSS system is not that strong; if you hit it too hard, it does not register.” However, she has seen how other competitors have adjusted to the changing sensitivities of the scoring system. “Other competitors have overcome that, they try to fix their problems to be acquainted with the system.”

Although she said she does not like appearing on TV and in newspapers, she is clearly a public figure.

During the photo shoot for this article, it proved difficult to get her out of the venue due to the dozens of Mexicans squealing “Maria!” and begging for signatures and photographs. She is sometimes recognised on the streets and in restaurants, and this high profile has won her corporate attention: Her sponsors include Coca Cola and athletic wear maker Under Armor.

And Espinoza is not just a warrior in taekwondo competition, she is the real deal: She is a private soldier with two-and-a-half years service in the Mexican Army, which provides full-time sport training for elite competitors, “as long as I am winning!”

As for the future, she hopes to possibly run a business or operate a string of taekwondo academies. The latter ambition seems feasible, given the sport’s popularity in Mexico.

Is there any particular reason why taekwondo is so popular in the country?

“The Mexican character is like saying,’ No Stop,’” she said.

“In boxing, there are many champions in Mexico and all the people want to be champions, all want to fight better. Taekwondo is the same.”

Chong's performance in the qualifying round had overcome all competitors. The Canadian's final performance was now just moments away. In the eye of the storm, he waited quietly for his cue to take position. The clock ticked.

The signal came. He bowed and paced to the centre of the competition area. The music began. As Chong exploded into his choreography of kicks, leaps and spins, the entire audience roared its excitement.

In just a minute-and-a-half, it was over. Chong, panting, waited as the scores were collated. Minutes later, the decision was declared: The Canadian was crowned the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF)'s first-ever world freestyle poomsae champion.

Freestyle poomsae is the newest addition to the repertoire of competition formats at the world championship level. It incorporates the traditional forms of poomsae with music, acrobatic skills, and artistic interpretation. The new format has grown in popularity in many WTF Member National Associations and was adopted as the newest competition discipline at the 2012 World Championships in Colombia after debuting as a demonstration event the previous year in Vladivostok, Russia.

Charlie Chong made history when he won the first-ever world poomsae title at Tunja ©YouTube

Chong had been excited to learn about the addition of a freestyle division to poomsae competition.

"I have always been fascinated by that precision and power in the moves of poomsae, so to now be able to take that to the next level was really exciting for me," he said. "When my master and I heard of the news, we got to work trying things out and seeing what we could put together."

It was no easy task. The master-student duo agonised so much over Chong's routine that they were tweaking it on the eve of the World Championships.

"When we started training sessions and we saw the level of competition that I would face, we knew everyone had come prepared," Chong recalled. "My master and I decided we needed to up my level of difficulty, so three days before the compe- tition, we revamped my routine." That revamping went down to the line.

"Obviously the changes were worth it in the end, but it did mean a lot of late night training back at the hotel!" Chong said. "The night before competition I was training until after midnight."

The WTF's first ever world freestyle poomsae champion is not your typical youngster. He is a focused and determined individual who speaks deliberately, with careful consideration of the words he chooses. The discipline visible in his daily routine portrays a champion in training - not only in his sport but in his wider life as well. He is up at around 9am. and at the dojang by 2 pm where he prepares for his own training, as well as teaching the young kids that inspire him to forge ahead with his own dreams. In fact, his training often takes a backseat to his teaching, which he does not complete until around 10pm.

When asked about coaching he said, "The kids are really a driving force for me in my training," said Chong, who retained his world title in Bali in 2013. "They remind me of me when I was their age, so full of dreams of being a champion and so eager to train. Actually, I guess I am still that way, but the young students really keep me that way."

Is there pressure to be a role model for the students at his own dojang? "I don't know if the kids look at me that way; maybe they do," he replied with his characteristic quiet modesty. "I mean, they do know that I went to the World Championships, but I don't know if they give any meaning as to what it could mean. But there already is a kind of pressure to just be a good teacher. I hope I can have a positive influence in my life the way that my father did when I was growing up and that he and my coach have had in recent years."

Chong had two dreams when he was younger: being an Olympian and joining S.W.A.T, the elite police squad. He has clearly made his mark in the poomsae world and also competes locally in kyorugi. Meanwhile, alongside his training in taekwondo, he is working towards a career in law enforcement, having finished a two-year course in Police Foundations at Seneca College King Campus in King City, Ontario.

As fast as his kicks and spins may be, Chong chooses his words slowly and carefully before delivering them in a soft voice that is un- like that of many young men. He is a deliberate individual who is still planning his future.

He began taekwondo at the age of four when he was introduced to the sport by his father, a taekwondo master who helped to spread the sport at the grassroots level in Canada. When he was 13, his father moved the whole family to Toronto from Cambridge, Ontario, so that Charlie could have better training and his father could further develop his business. The decision to move paid off when he won that gold medal in Colombia.

So who is Charlie Chong? He is the standard that all others in the future of freestyle poomsae now have to live up to - himself included.