Five years after her “heartbreaking” finish at Rio where she settled for bronze, taekwondo exponent Panipak Wongpattanakit gets another chance to win a historic gold medal for Thailand today.
While a bronze medal is too good to be true for most athletes from the Kingdom, it was not enough for the then teenage warrior who had been tipped to claim the top prize at the 2016 Games.
Panipak, now 23, almost quit after returning home from her Olympic debut.
The Surat Thani native, under the guidance of national coach Choi Young-Seok, was so disheartened by her failure to win gold that she turned her back on the sport for two months.
“I had a really good chance in Rio but in a fraction of a second, I blew it. I was so disappointed and I told my coach I did not want to keep going. But after two months, I really missed taekwondo and resumed training,” Panipak said.
Now a…
