Gold-medal reality still sinking in for US taekwondo champion Anastasija Zolotic

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TOKYO – Two days after making history, Anastasija Zolotic still couldn’t believe she had won Olympic gold.

But on the day she became the first American woman to win taekwondo gold in the Games, she could hardly fathom any other outcome. That’s the surreal limbo the 18-year-old finds herself in as she prepares to leave the site of her biggest win.

Zolotic has had two nights, though little sleep, since winning the under-57 kilogram final bout on Sunday and hasn’t processed it all.

“I know a lot of people are freaking out over their gold, silver and bronze medals, and I’m over here sitting next to my gold medal and just looking at it like what did I just do?” she said Tuesday. “I’m trying to kind of feel the emotions.”

Maybe it was the lack of fans and family or the familiarity with her opponents, but Zolotic said the competition didn’t feel like an Olympics, or at least didn’t come with the pressure she anticipated. The Florida native felt nothing but confident that day.

Anastasija Zolotic celebrates on the podium after winning gold in the women's under-57 kilogram division during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games at Makuhari Messe Hall A.
Anastasija Zolotic celebrates on the podium after winning gold in the women's under-57 kilogram division during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games at Makuhari Messe Hall A.

“Throughout the day I just kept thinking, if everything was like this, why wouldn’t I fight as well as I could?” she said. “I think I peaked right at the perfect moment and I just took home that gold.”

Her second contest showed that. Zolotic faced Turkey’s Hatice Kubra Ilgun, whom she had lost to all five times she faced Ilgun previously. But she jumped to an early lead and controlled the contest, advancing while Ilgun would go on to win bronze.

“In my mind, I couldn’t envision myself crying and going back to that room and having to go through this repechage,” Zolotic said. “Everything was so perfect, through my training, my weight cut and my warm-up to where I felt like there was nothing that could have gone wrong in this match.”

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Zolotic didn’t exactly fly under the radar – she had Pan Am gold and a Youth Olympics silver – but the field included higher ranked fighters, including two-time defending Olympic gold medalist Jade Jones.

Zolotic had hoped to face her, but Jones lost in the round of 16. Zolotic had little difficulty dispatching the other fighters she faced, including Russia’s Tatiana Minina in the gold-medal contest.

“I always say I like to be the underdog just because it takes a lot of pressure off, but I’m kind of getting to a point where I’m like, you can’t keep pretending to be the underdog,” she said.

She might have a hard time with that in the future. Though she’s thought about where she’ll put the medal in her room at home, it hasn’t hit her yet that she’s a gold medalist.

Zolotic expects it might when she is reunited with her family in Florida or when they travel to Bosnia and Herzegovenia to visit extended family she hasn’t seen in at least eight years.

It certainly didn't sink in on the podium, where the grinning teen tilted her head back several times as if in disbelief. In reality – this surreal one Zolotic envisioned but still can’t process – she was trying not to look at her coach, Gareth Brown, or the USA Taekwondo staff for fear she would cry.

“It was kind of those pinch-me moments,” she said. “Every time I looked up I was like, I’m gonna look back down and it’s not here. Nope, it’s still here.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tokyo Olympics taekwondo champ Anastasija Zolotic still processing win