TAEKWONDO: Thai star Panipak Wongpattanakit made history at the 2023 World Taekwondo Grand Prix in Rome, Italy last Sunday (June 11) when she won a gold medal in the women’s 49kg class.
Panipak defeated Spain’s Adriana Cerezo Iglesias to claim her 10th overall gold in the competition, the first athlete to achieve the feat, which also places her at the top of the charts of all time female winners.
She has now won a total of 13 medals (10 gold, two silver and one bronze) at the World Taekwondo Grand Prix, which serves as a qualifier for the Olympic Games. The competition is structured across four different locations each year in each Olympic weight category, with further events this year to be held in Paris, France (Aug 31 – Sept 2), Taiyuan, China (Oct 1) and Manchester, England (Dec 2-3).
Surat Thani native Panipak, often affectionately referred to as “Tennis”, had to fight hard in the Eternal City to overcome Iglesias in the final match by a score of 3-2 to claim the gold medal and pocket the winner’s cheque of approximately US$5,000 (B170,000).
The two know each other well having competed against one another in the women’s 49kg taekwondo gold medal match at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. Panipak left it late on that occasion, trailing 10-9 with just five seconds remaining before delivering a devastating last-gasp kick to secure the win.
In doing so she became the first Thai medal winner at the Tokyo Games and the first ever from Thailand to win a gold medal in the sport of taekwondo at Olympic level. It was also the only gold medal Thailand won in Tokyo.
More recently Panipak, 25, won her fourth successive gold medal at the 32nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Cambodia when she defeated Vietnam’s Thi Kim Tuyen Truong in the women’s 49kg final.
Panipak was voted best female amateur athlete of 2022 by the Sports Writers Association of Thailand (Swat) at the annual national sports awards ceremony in Bangkok on Apr 19 this year.
She is mentored by respected coach Choi Young-Seok, a Korean national who became a fully-fledged Thai citizen last year and who Panipak herself is quick to credit for much of her recent success.
