Smiraglia, who last year in Wuhan won bronze at the World Military Games also last year made the last 16 of the World Championships in Manchester in the United Kingdom in the -73kg category.

In recent months, she has had to train from home in Italy, one of the worst affected nations in the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, which started months after her medal win at the World Military Games, in the same city of Wuhan.

Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Smiraglia said: "I admit that it strangled me to think that only a short time before I was in what later became the epicentre of a world pandemic.

"Yet at the beginning I also underestimated its scope, who could have said it at the beginning."

Now, she returns her focus to training for the Olympics, of which she is yet to qualify for; and spoke about her reaction to the postponement of the Games due to the pandemic, with it now being moved to 2021.

Smiraglia said: "At the beginning I was very sorry because I was training so much and I saw the finish line one step away.

"I was working to participate in the April qualifier in Milan and the news destabilised me.

"Surely it was right to postpone them given the health emergency and everything the world has faced.

"In hindsight now I see everything in a positive way, this year more will be a great chance for me to improve and prepare myself to the maximum.

"Now we are fighting and the fear that the more time you spend without contact the more it can slow down the return to optimal form, I admit that it can put a little fear, but I am sure that when everything returns to normal we will continue to aim high as we have always done."

She also spoke about the necessity to put the sport into the public limelight, praising the Italian Taekwondo Federation for its work of building the sport and a taekwondo demonstration team who were in the final of Italia's Got Talent.