USA's Anastasija Zolotic wins first Olympic gold medal

Anastasija Zolotic is considered one of the top rising stars in taekwondo, and she showed the world why Sunday by winning Olympic gold.

Competing in her first-ever Olympics, the Largo, Florida native defeated Tatiana Minina of ROC to win the women’s -57 kg taekwondo final. Minina, over five years older than Zolotic, is a two-time silver medalist at the World Taekwondo Championships and a three-time gold medalist at the European Taekwondo Championships.

With this victory, Zolotic becomes the first American taekwondo athlete to win a gold medal since Steven Lopez won the Olympic taekwondo title in 2004.

Zolotic, still just 18 years old, already has an impressive run of success on her resume. In the last three years alone, she’s won gold medals at the Pan American Games and the World Taekwondo Junior Championships, not to mention a silver medal at the Youth Olympic Games in 2018.

Now she’s captured Olympic gold, and this may just be her first of many.