Thai Olympic Medalist Yaowapa Boorapolchai Retires Due To Injury

Bangkok, Thailand (AHN) - Thailand's Olympic taekwondo bronze medalist Yaowapa Boorapolchai decides to retire but only till she recovers from a foot injury.

The 23-year-old Thai jin more popular known to many as 'View' will be missing the Beijing Games after being hounded by a nagging foot injury. Yaowapa, who landed the bronze in the 49-kilogram class at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, will have to undergo surgery to repair the toe injury on her left foot.

"I did not want to miss the cut for the Beijing Olympics, which would have been my last, and I trained very hard for the national selection trials on May 16,'' Yaowapa was quoted as saying by the Daily Express.

Yaowapa, bronze medalist in the 2003 World Taekwondo Championships in Universiade and also in the World Taekwondo Pre-Olympic Tournament also in the same year, started competing in 2002 beating the likes of Brigitte Yague of Spain in the first round of tournament only to be stopped in the quarterfinals by Yanelis Yuliet Labrada Diaz of Cuba. She later won the bronze in the repechage tournament after getting past Ivette Gonda of Canada and Colombia's Gladys Alicia Mora Romero.

Yaowapa, a gold medalist in the 2003 South East Asian Games, is the only Thai athlete outside of boxing and weightlifting that have brought home an Olympic medal for her homeland.