Gjessing earned the women's K44 under-58 kilograms title at the Makuhari Messe Hall B in Chiba, with a 32-14 win in the final over Britain’s Beth Munro, who had earlier beaten China's 2019 world champion Li Yujie in the last four.

The Danish athlete reached the final with a thrilling 8-6 victory over Brazil's Silvana Fernandes.

Following her historic victory in what was the first Paralympic taekwondo competition, World Taekwondo President Chungwon Choue met with Gjessing in Tokyo.

Choue congratulated her and discussed her plans for the future now she has won it all.

Gjessing lived up to her billing as one of Denmark's big medal hopes at the Paralympic Games, in which she took part as the world number one ranked player.

In March 2021, Danish broadcaster DR named Gjessing among seven athletes it tipped for a medal.

She had also been identified as "one to watch" by the International Paralympic Committee.

With that amount of pressure it was just as well that Gjessing had years of experience behind her at the top level.

"I am especially looking forward to feeling the atmosphere that the whole world unites around one thing, namely sports," she said before the Paralympic competition began.

Born in 1978, Gjessing is one of the older athletes on the circuit, but what she lacks in youth she more than makes up for in experience.

Gjessing was a member of Denmark's able-bodied taekwondo team and competed at the 2001 and 2003 World Championships, before being diagnosed in 2007 with chondrosarcoma, a form of bone cancer.

She underwent different treatments before her lower left arm was amputated in 2012.

At this crucial point in her life, Gjessing got in touch with her former coach, Bjarne Johansen, who spoke to her about Para-taekwondo.

She got back into training and was soon practicing alongside elite athletes at Johansen's training centre, in preparation for the World Para Taekwondo Championships in Lausanne in 2013.

She duly took the title in the under-58kg category, setting off on a long unbeaten run which only ended in 2019.

During that sequence of success she retained her world title in 2014, 2015 and 2017. The latter achievement - in an event staged at London 2012 Olympic venue the Copper Box Arena - was watched by her two daughters.

"I saw them in the stand during my first match and I started crying but thought 'no, you can't cry now!" said Gjessing to the IPC.

"When I went to the mat in the final I also felt like crying but told myself 'you can't be emotional now.'"

At the 2019 World Championships in Antalya, Turkey, however, she had to settle for bronze in an event where China's Li took gold and Serbia's Marija Micev silver - but she did break her arm in the quarter-finals.

In September 2019, Gjessing experienced another rare defeat in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic test event at Makuhari Messe, although this was in the heavyweight class and not her own weight division.

She suffered a 27-10 loss to Britain's 2017 world champion Amy Truesdale, but she remained buoyant about her Tokyo capabilities.

"Taekwondo has become a very big gift to me," she told World Taekwondo. "It will be a great challenge for me to advance to the Tokyo Paralympics."

Gjessing's life has been marked by professional as well as sporting success. Her legal qualifications have earned her a position as a state prosecutor in Denmark.

Reflecting upon her illness, she told World Taekwondo in 2014: "It was a big shock."

Gjessing had given up taekwondo by then, partly due to family and educational commitments and partly due to failing to qualify for the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

But while rehabilitating from her operation in 2012 she saw something that inspired her.

"I saw the Paralympics in London a few months after my amputation, and I thought, 'how can I feel sorry for myself, when they can do all this?' she recalled.

So she contacted Johansen. After an eight-year lay-off, Gjessing got back into training. "Johansen had an elite taekwondo centre and his guys were on a high level," she said. "But I found I could still kick."

Just a month-and-a-half later, she entered the able-bodied Danish National Championships and won in her class. "That felt really good," she admitted. She started intensive training for the 2013 World Para Taekwondo Championships in Lausanne.

She was off on a golden pathway towards a historic success in Tokyo…