I live in Thailand and realize how momentous this is. In the last Olympics, where I didn't yet live here, I was told that a woman weight-lifter managed to get a silver medal and the country basically erupted in simultaneous applause. Said weight-lifter also received a heroes welcome upon returning to the country and there seemed to be a competition of sorts among the country's ultra-wealthy to give her as much stuff as possible.
This was for a silver so I can't even imagine what this is going to mean for the nation's very first gold medal ever won in any sport in the Olympics.
I didn't see it but according to one of the few Thai friends that I have this spread across social media very quickly and even if someone has no interest in taekwondo or even understands how it works, they were glued to the screen for this when it was on a few days ago.
For anyone coming from a large western country such as the United States, winning a gold medal has become so common that I don't think most of us really pay any attention to it anymore. You have to win multiple medals before the cereal companies even want to get in touch with you. In Thailand, Panipak Wongpattanakit (good luck pronouncing that one) is going to have a bright future ahead of her with this win and will almost certainly be showered with gifts of cash, gold, and of course the obligatory Mercedes that the rich here seem to dole out to just about anyone that makes some sort of splash internationally speaking.
It was apparently an extreme underdog victory where she was not expected to win and during the gold medal competition she was actually down on points and had a come-from-behind victory for gold.
At the moment Panipak, whose nickname is "Tennis" for some reason, is the hero of the country and from a morale point of view, this is a very good thing. Covid and lockdowns have everyone down in this country and this could be just what we need at this moment to kind of bring people back together.
It's a shame that I didn't know this was on until after it happened because from what I hear from people that were at my local sports bar, Thai people were coming in the shop in droves to a sports bar they do not frequent and most of them had never been there before. This bar is kind of a "foreigner bar" and according to people that were there everyone came together in celebration over her victory. Now that's pretty awesome no matter how you look at it!