Twelve years ago, 21-year-old Wu Jingyu pocketed her first Olympic taekwondo gold medal in Beijing. One year ago, she secured qualification for the Tokyo Olympics, becoming the first female taekwondo athlete to qualify for four consecutive Olympic competitions.

Wu is also the vice president of the Chinese Taekwondo Association and the mother of a three-year old girl.

Having won gold in both Beijing (2008) and Sydney (2012), Wu suffered painful loss in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. After that, she chose to retire, got married and became a mother.

However, Wu decided to come back to the ring in 2019. When asked why she made that decision, Wu told Xinhua: "Actually I had been thinking about this (comeback) since Rio. I wanted to give it another try after giving birth to my baby. I was not trying to prove anything or pick myself up from where I fell. I think I only did it because I love taekwondo. I wanted to explore a way that no one has explored before."

Wu also compared herself now to 12 years earlier. "I did not know what I was fighting for back then. I only knew that I won the title. But now I have a better idea now. I still want to be the best, but the best does not necessarily have to be the champion. It matters more to do a good job every day, to make and implement a plan so I know I'm getting better every day, I know what my problem is, I know how to find the solution, and then I can work towards winning the title."

It took Wu 10 months of training and matches to gain Olympic qualification. During that period, she was thinking about her daughter all the time. "I received a lot of extra time thanks to the postponing of the Tokyo Olympics but I owe too much to my daughter. I once told her 'mommy will come back for your three-year-old birthday.' Then I changed it to four-year-old birthday after the delay was announced. Maybe she still has no idea what I mean, but I really want to be with her these years."

Wu was in a lot of pain after the loss in Rio. She admitted that it's her daughter who pushed her to end that pain. "I couldn't forgive myself in 2016. I couldn't get past it. I couldn't accept that I was not good as I sued to be. Then I had my baby girl. Our communication helped my how to tolerate failure and how to talk to others. … I was not good at communicating with teammates before that because I was always kinda bossy. My baby got me to realize that's not how you communicate. You need to try to be in others' shoes."

Today's Wu is both an athlete and coach of the national team. When she started in the sport 21 years ago, taekwondo was not very popular. That's not the story anymore. "Now one in five or six children may have practiced taekwondo. It's way more popular than before. I believe it will get even better in the future. …Now China has our own World Grand Slam event and growing audience to the sport."

Meanwhile, Wu considers it important for children to love taekwondo. "I rarely tried to tell people how great taekwondo is because I want kids to love it for their own choice. I hope they can explore new things and find the sport they want to spend their life on. It doesn't have to be taekwondo. Any sport, as long as you stick to it, your life will be different."