With flash, precise and hard kicks, Chinese taekwondo player Wu Jingyu just let the "wild boy" in her out, and then, she was the gold girl.

After a 1-1 minus victory over her Thai challenger Puedpong Buttree on Wednesday, the new Olympian champion in taekwondo women's 49kg class shouted, jumped, waved her fists before wrapping herself in China's national flag and running along, inviting deafening ovation and applause from home fans.

"I have been waiting for this day for a long time. I'm very excited now. I want to thank all the people who have helped me along the way. This is a reward for them," said the reigning world champion.

"It is a breakthrough for China in this weight category because no Chinese have won a gold in this before," the 21-year-old said.

She gave special thanks to her training partner Liu Kang. "For 11 years he has been with me in training. I learnt to kick others' heads starting with kicking his head," she said.

Before her duel with Buttree, Wu already impressed the judges and audience with quick, sharp attacks, which delivered her overwhelming 8-1 and a 7-0 victories over her opponents in the prelims.

"Taking the initiative to attack is my style. I have been this way from my childhood," Wu said. "I like to take offensive, but I also adjust my strategies according to the characteristics of my opponents. I have learnt to control my emotion in competition, especially when I face counter-offensive players."

She admitted the "wild boy" side in her personality. "From childhood, I have gotten along well with boys. Now I am a grow-up and have to somewhat conceal this side of my personality. But in competition, I will let the 'wild boy' out."

From a very young age, Wu had dreamed of being a taekwondo player, as she thought the sport was fun and needed an athlete's own judgment to be excellent.

Her chance came when she was 12. Her coach, Wang Zhijie, went to the middle school she was in to pick future taekwondo players. "He just asked 'who is the fastest runner in your class?' Every one pointed to me. Then, I was chosen."

But to many others, Wu, standing at 1.4 meters then, was not an ideal choice for taekwondo. "My coach was under heavy pressure because of me. So, I just wanted to do well to make him proud."

After two years' taekwondo training, Wu, who was in the taekwondo team of China's Jiangxi Province then, won the gold medal at the national youth championships.

Then she began to dream of making the national team. Before the dream came true, she got another chance which was dreamed of by many other young Chinese girls: being a movie star.

That was in 2002 when the director of a Chinese movie named "Taekwondo" came over to choose the childhood role for the main character, a taekwondo player. The director approached Wu, who was in training with her teammates.

"I was overjoyed because I thought he was the coach of the national team and wanted me," said Wu. Half a month later, she was offered the role in the movie.

"I was excited at the beginning. But later on, I found out that playing a role in a movie was just so so," Wu said of her brief movie experience.

Three years later, Wu realized her dreaming of making the national team, but very soon, she tasted the bitterness of being a taekwondo player: she failed to win gold medals in the Asian Championships and World Cup Series, both by a fairly slim margin.

Frustrated as she was, Wu chose to fight back, and she made it. After winning the gold in the Asiad in 2006, she had another lead-forward when she claimed the gold medal in the 2007 world championships and won a berth for the Beijing Games.

Wu, born in China's "porcelain capital" Jingdezhen, in China's Jiangxi Province, boasts an unique feat of painting on the surface of porcelain crafts.

"My uncle is a porcelain craftsman, so I knew how to paint on porcelain when I was young."

Wu said she designs porcelain and her uncle makes them. She has given out many porcelain crafts designed by her as gifts.

"I do not know if they (the receivers) still keep them or not. They will regret if they discard them, because they will surely appreciate one day," she said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 20, 2008)