On the evening of July 24, panipak defeated Adriana Iglesias ( Spain) with a score of 11-10 to win the Gold Medal in the women's taekwondo under 49kg weight class. This is Thailand's first Olympic Gold Medal in this event. To achieve this result, in addition to the excellent performance of the boxer born in 1997, she also received special support from the leadership of the taekwondo sport, coaches, doctors...
Siam Sports newspaper has revealed a series of secrets to create panipak's precious Gold Medal. Accordingly, during the training process, Korean coach Che Yong-seok and the coaching staff collected documentary videos of the opponents that panipak could face at the Olympics, carefully studying their playing style to find a suitable way to deal with them.
After that, 7 male athletes will simulate the playing style of their opponents as panipak, so that the Thai fighter can get acquainted. With such careful preparation, panipak won "as a bamboo rat" from the qualifying round to the final, including a 20-11 victory over Truong Thi Kim Tuyen of Vietnam in the quarter-finals. However, the opponent in the final match Adriana Cerezo is an opponent that the Thai coaching staff... has not studied.
According to the calculation of panipak coaching staff, Korean fighter Sim Jae-yong or Su Po-ya from Taiwan (China) are the main opponents. However, these fighters were all eliminated early. Because they did not know the Adriana, panipak was 9-10 down with only 5 seconds left in the match. Fortunately, in the short remaining time, panipak had an accurate hit to narrowly overcome 1110, in the stunning performance of the Spanish fighter.
Before leaving for Tokyo, Thai Sports set a goal of winning 3 Gold Medals, in which panipak is the number 1 hope. Therefore, they did not want any risks for this golden girl. According to Siam Sports, Paninak's air tickets have been upgraded from the regular class to the business class, to minimize the risk of COVID-19 infection. Many athletes have had to sadly say goodbye to the Olympics due to COVID-19 infection before going to Japan as well as when they were present at the Athletes' Village.
During the 2020 Tokyo Olympics postponed for 1 year, panipak had more time to rest and fully recover from a hip injury. In addition, she also has time to "pay off debts" for her university degree. She entered the tournament in Tokyo with the most excited and relaxed mentality. These also contribute significantly to helping panipak make history for her as well as Thai sports.
