Ivet Goranova crowned inaugural women's kumite -55kg Olympic champion

Bulgaria's Ivet Goranova defeated Ukraine's Anzhelika Terliuga in a 5-1 victory to win gold in the women's kumite -55kg at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

Karate officially marked its Olympic debut as competition got underway today at the Nippon Budokan with the first medals handed out.

It was a close opening minute between the two karatekas as the 21-year-old Bulgarian took a 2-1 lead. Unfortunately for the world no.1 Terliuga, her point in the early stages of the bout would be the only one she'd earn as Goranova extended her lead to 4-1 with an waza-ari.

A yuko in the final 10 seconds of the bout secured Goranova the gold medal - the first women's kumite gold on offer at Tokyo 2020.

"Firstly, I want to congratulate the other girls," she said. "For me, this is the biggest dream in my life. I think I did incredible in the competition and I gave it my all."

It was also Bulgaria's first Olympic gold medal since Beijing 2008, where Rumyana Neikova won the women's single sculls.

While Terliuga came away with a silver, she isn't looking at the colour of the medal but thinking about how proud she was after all the hard work she put in to reaching the Olympic Games.

"Here in this medal, a lot of the hard work, a lot of the days of training, a lot of things I have done and I didn't have it the easy way," she said. "I realised today after I qualified for the semi-final that I will come back with a medal and that made me so happy.

"But in the end we are sitting here and we are the best so I am proud of myself."

The bronze medals went to WEN Tzuyun of Chinese Taipei and Bettina Plank of Austria.