Olympic taekwondo champion Anastasija Zolotic on “loss of motivation” after career-threatening injury, her comeback season, and why being stubborn pays off

Anastasija Zolotic is an all-round fighter.

Aged 18, she kicked her way to a historic gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021. And since becoming the first American woman to win gold in taekwondo at the Olympics, Zolotic has discovered that the fighter inside her is greater.

Barely settled into her newfound fame, the Olympic champion suffered a knee injury, abruptly ending her season. For nearly eight months she could not kick or punch and considered walking away from the mat after ‘loss of motivation’.

“Especially with my Olympic title. I had just won it and I had to go through this (injury) and I kind of lost a sense of who I was,” Zolotic told Olympics.com in an interview from Team USA’s new training base in North Carolina.

“I was like, ‘well, I don't deserve this title. I'm not even competing. I'm not training. Nobody even knows who I am anymore.’ It's kind of like this uphill, downhill battle when I was going through that.”

Zolotic, who was introduced to taekwondo by her father when she was just five and won Youth Olympic silver at Buenos Aires 2018, faced her biggest opponent yet - her own mind.

“I lost motivation like a lot,”

Now, she's back and competing at the 2022 World Grand Prix Paris event, an Olympic qualifier live on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th September (restrictions apply).

The lengthy and difficult recovery process helped the young taekwondo featherweight (57kg) star gain new perspective on a sport she fell in love with when she won the 2018 world junior title.

The Florida native is steadily regaining her competitive drive as she works on getting back to her pre-Olympic form.

The Pan American Games champion took bronze at the Rome Grand Prix last June, and as she returns for another test in Paris, she is already eyeing her first senior world title in November to set her on the right path for the next Olympics. The winners of the Grand Prix in Paris will achieve ranking points towards qualification for Paris 2024.

Check out the interview below.

READ MORE: Paris 2022 World Taekwondo Grand Prix: Top things you need to know about the Olympic qualifier

Anastasija Zolotic on perspective gained from a severe knee-injury

Olympics.com (O.C): It has been a year since you became the first American to win gold in taekwondo at the Olympics. Are you now used to your new tag, Olympic champion?

Anastasija Zolotic (AZ): I don't think I am. I got injured after the Olympics, so I didn't really get to walk around with that title and go to competitions and compete. The Grand Prix in Rome was the first competition back since the Olympics, just because I had surgery. Sometimes it's shocking to me when people are like, ‘Oh my God, there's the Olympic champion...’I'm like looking around like, ‘where? they're talking about me? what?’

Or when people take photos and I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh. Like, this is just so odd’. I think if I do it a second time in Paris, it would be a lot easier to process. But I think just because I'm still so young and new to it, it's just very awkward for me still.

O.C? How bad was the injury you picked up, and the recovery?

AZ: I got injured during a test match after we got back from the Olympics. It was part of my patella, so basically one of my muscles tore next to it. My patella, kneecap, it split into multiple pieces. We had that removed and we had some scar tissues and stuff removed from around my knee to kind of clear the area. What we thought was initially just a crack was a little worse than what it was. I think it took six to eight months before I was fully back into training.

O.C: That must have been a very difficult moment, the longest you been away from the mat?

AZ: Yeah, I was living at home, my mom was helping because I couldn't walk. Having my family there was a lot easier, but not being able to do something you used to do every single day for like 10 hours of your day set my schedule off completely.

I lost motivation like a lot. I was thinking about quitting, like, why would I even get up and do this again? Finding my motivation again was like a really big one. My coach (Gareth Brown) pushed and encouraged me to come back, I wouldn't be here without him.

A lot of athletes go through injuries, and I don't think a lot of people understand what it's like. But you lose a lot of your motivation, especially with my Olympic title, like I had just won it and I had to go through this and I kind of lost a sense of who I was. I was like, ‘well, I don't deserve this title. I'm not even competing. I'm not training. Nobody even knows who I am anymore.’

It's kind of like this uphill, downhill battle when I was going through that.

O.C: How did manage to get out of that difficult period? did you work with a therapist or someone else?

AZ: I'm a very stubborn person, I was like, ‘no, no, I can do this myself.’ I think I kind of found it in myself. I was like, I owe it to myself to get back up. I worked so hard to get to Tokyo. Why would I not do it again for Paris?

I had to remind myself, I'm not the only person that has gone through an injury and that it will probably happen again because we do a contact sport. So it is normal and if so many other people can do it and like even in harder sports, like gymnastics and stuff, I can get up and push myself to get better and get back to where I was.

It was more of reflecting on myself. What would I do ten years ago, the 12-year-old me? I had to understand that this happened. It was kind of like thinking about myself personally and (reflecting on) what I've gone through, like when I was younger and switching coaches and stuff: "If I can get through those things, this is a little easier. I'm just sitting on a couch recovering’. All I got to do is bend my knee a few times and get back to kicking."

It was kind of just motivating myself and comparing it to like my past experiences. I had surgery on my wrist before and even though it's not your legs, I was out for a few weeks and I was like, "Instead of like three weeks, I just got to do it for like three, three week periods, I just got to push, push, push."

Zolotic on her Olympic title: "It was to open doors for other people"

O.C: You managed to recover just in time for the Grand Prix in Rome in June. How was it opening your season then?

AZ: Getting to Rome, I was very discouraged. I'm like, "I'm not going to do well, why did I even come here? I'm not ready". I don't think I trained for more than a month. I think it was like two weeks where I had very good, consistent training. I was extremely out of shape. I had to lose the weight. I wasn't there mentally, it was just like very scary going in. ‘What if I get injured again?’

When I got to my semi-final, which was with Jade Jones, double Olympic champion, for me to be able to beat her in the first round and with no past training, with like no motivation, nothing, was kind of shocking to me. The last two rounds were just awful. I didn't have it in me, so I knew what I had to do coming back from Rome to get myself prepared for the next competition.

O.C: What are your hopes for the Paris Grand Prix?

AZ: God gives these biggest battles to people… it's trusting in that and trusting in myself. Like I'm being thrown all of these things because in the end they'll be better.

And that's what it was with Tokyo. We had Covid, the Olympics were postponed. I'm kind of using these battles and all these losses and wins and struggles to kind of get myself to Paris (Grand Prix) or the World Championships with them this year and push myself towards that. I don't really expect more than what I got in Rome just because the move (from Colorado to North Carolina) has been draining on us, like emotionally, physically, and mentally.

But again, I'm going to do what I did in Rome, give everything I have, and if that kills me in the first round and I got three more rounds then so be it, keep pushing just put my best out there for what I have for right now and take the learning and then move on to the next competition and get ready for bigger events.

The big thing I want to achieve this year is the world championships which will be in November, because I have not won that in a senior competition. We have all these competitions in between taking everything, whether I remove the Olympic champion title out of my name just because I feel like people put a lot of pressure on that, I don't think there should be, we're all human, we all have days where we're not our best. We all have things in between.

O.C: Talking of the Olympics, what memory do you have of the Tokyo Games or that epic final?

AZ: The best part was before we went into the final, my semi-final was my favourite because that was kind of like I did it. Everybody wants to win the Olympics, but I think knowing I had just like made myself into the final, like I had that adrenaline and that rush and that desire to win so much that it just made my final that much easier.

I will never forget that. I will not forget walking back to the hotel and like telling my coach, "we're in the Olympic final, in a few hours we'll be fighting for the gold". I knew that there was nothing standing in my way after that fight. I was just like: "this is won before I even won."

O.C: How has that experience improved you as an athlete?

AZ: It opened a lot of doors for me. When I was younger, I didn't have somebody to look up to.

"What I really wanted to do with my Olympic title was not like, ‘Oh, I'm like an Olympic champion, bow for me or respect me or some way,’ it was to open doors for other people, especially women in sport who have a very hard time.

This is like a men's sport but women do it.

When I go to events, like sometimes I go to my room and cry because little girls, are like, ‘oh my God, we look up to you… thank you!’ Or their moms will be like, ‘you just don't understand, like what you've done, or like how much you've helped my daughter or even my son!’

I'll smile and take photos, but I don't think they understand how much their words impact me. I'll go back home, and I'll cry and my mom will be like ‘what's wrong?’ and I’m like, ‘nothing's wrong. I'm just so happy. I didn't win this Olympic medal for myself, I won it for everybody.

Zolotic on her resolve to keep fighting: "Stay stubborn and believe in yourself"

O.C: What have you learnt about yourself since the Olympics?

AZ: I've learnt that I'm a very driven person. I didn’t realise that until Tokyo. I've had moments where I'm like, 'I quit'. I will tell my coach, ‘I quit taekwondo!’ Even before the games I was like, ‘this is not for me!’ But I've learnt, once I've set my mind to something, there's nothing stopping me. Before the games I had set my mind. I'm going to the Olympics. This is when I was like eight years old, 'I'm going to the Olympics' and Tokyo was right there.

And I've had days where I'm like, 'I won't show up for training and I don't want to be here. I don't want to be around my team, around my coach, I hate this sport, blah, blah, blah'. Even though I've had a lot of downs, I always got back up. There wasn't a point where I didn’t. That's one thing I noticed (that) I never really noticed before.

O.C: If you were to meet your 8-year-old self, the one who proclaimed that she would one day be an Olympic champ, what would you tell her?

AZ: I would tell her to continue being the stubborn little girl she is. If I hadn't been so stubborn and up and down with taekwondo, I really wouldn't be where I am. I know everybody wants that smooth incline to the top and rise to the top easy. But you don't get there without all those ups and downs. The downs are what make you get back up every time you go down, you shoot right back up. I would just tell her to keep doing what she's doing and stay stubborn, keep her dreams in sight and not let nobody tell her she can't do it, and believe in herself.

O.C: Looking back at your sporting journey that began 14 years ago, what would say is the moment you fell in love with taekwondo?

AZ: It was when I went to my junior world championships. I had promised my dad I would do junior worlds. I made a deal with him. If I go to the Olympics, I can quit, because my younger sister had quit and I used to do it with my younger sister and that's why I love the sport so much, because me and her kind of bonded over it. And when she quit, I was alone in it. I didn't like it very much.

But when I won the world (junior) championships and I saw what I could do, I was like, ‘I love this! look what I can do. Why wouldn't I do this further?’ And then I went to the Youth Olympics, and my dad was like, ‘you can quit if you want.’ I was like, ‘why would I quit? I fought with a broken hand and still got a silver. Why wouldn't I do this again?’

Knowing I could do something like that kind of empowered me and made me want to do it more. And I think that's what got me to Tokyo and that's what will get me to Paris (2024 Olympics).

O.C: What comes to your mind when you think of Paris 2024?

AZ: Success. I just want another gold medal, and I don't want it as much as I wanted the one in Tokyo. I want it more just because I know to be the first American woman to do it once in taekwondo, and imagine if I could do it twice? It'd be all over. And it wouldn't just be for me…the sport rises.

The move to North Carolina, having all these resources…imagine what I could do with two Olympic gold medals and be like, ‘Look Team USA is on top of taekwondo. We have more athletes training to be the best. If you give us opportunities, we'll take them and we'll give you results. And it's for our country, it's for our sport, it's for those little girls and boys that don’t know what they want to do yet, you inspire them and they do it.

I did taekwondo because my dad loved it so much. So my dad got me into it, but I didn't have anybody to look up to after that. I kind of just looked up to my dad to enter the sport. Having somebody to kind of push me and be like, ‘Oh, dang, look at this opportunity she had...’ I want that for myself so I can do something that I'm so passionate about. That’s like my big thing for Paris.

READ MORE: How to qualify for taekwondo at Paris 2024. The Olympics qualification system explained

Watch Zolotic competing at the 2022 World Taekwondo Grand Prix Paris event, an Olympic qualifier, live on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th September (restrictions apply).