The 22-year-old was far from being a natural athlete, which lead to Kim’s original aim of improving her then-poor physique by learning the martial art.

“I took taekwondo up when I was nine as I was very weak and ill, I took it up for my health,” she said.

“My parents suggested starting it, and now I am all good physically.” 

Her journey has exceeded her expectations however, and through taekwondo Kim has become an elite athlete competing and winning at the highest level.

The 22-year old, who grew up in the countryside in Chuncheon in South Korea before migrating to Seoul for her education, captured the women’s under 49kg gold medal in the Carioca Arena 3 in Rio’s Barra Olympic Park last month.

The people who got their formerly sickly daughter into the sport were at ringside for her triumph.

“My parents were in Rio, and they were in tears, especially my mum,” she said.

Kim, the seventh seed in her class, faced eighth-seed Tijana Bogdanovic of Serbia who, earlier that day, stunned the taekwondo world by comprehensively defeating arguably the most dominant fighter in the sport, China’s double Olympic gold medallist Jingyu Wu.

"I was not nervous to face Bogdanovic, I was worried about Wu," Kim said.

"I expected to fight with Wu at the final and had prepared a lot for that."

Olympic gold is just the latest in Kim's list of accomplishments, which include gold at the 2015 Grand Prix tournament in Moscow, and gold in the under 46kg category at the 2013 World Championships in Puebla, Mexico.

Given her age, she has a long career ahead of her and has already set her sights on defending her title at Tokyo 2020.

"I will always challenge the next one," she said.

"I want to go to Tokyo 2020 if possible.

"I’d always dreamt of being an Olympic gold medallist, I realised the dream."