With fewer than 10 seconds remaining the 19-year-old trailed Britain's 22-year-old world champion Bradly Sinden by two points.

At this point the 17th-seeded Rashitov, who had beaten South Korean idol and number one seed Lee Dae-hoon in the round-of-16, produced an audacious swivelling kick to the head followed by one to the body - creating his own two-point lead.

After a flurry of activity to regain the initiative, Sinden was penalised and Rashitov ended up winning 34-29.

As the Uzbek camp rose in jubilation, Sinden, who had defeated China's formidable third seed Shuai Zhao 33-25 in his semi-final, sank disconsolately to the mat in the Makuhari Messe hall.

"I made a mistake," Sinden reflected. "As he came forward I saw that he'd stumbled, and I didn't think he would be able to attack and fair play to him he took advantage of that."

It so happened that Rashitov’s historic achievement was witnessed in person by International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, who had attended in the expectation of being able to award a first Olympic medal to a refugee athlete. Refugee Olympic Team athlete Kimia Alizadeh lost her bronze medal match, however.

One of Rashitov's coaches was killed that June which made his victory over the world champion a poignant one.

"It was very hurtful, not only for me but for all the athletes," he said.

"I was so sorry.

"But it made me stronger and I would like to dedicate this medal to him.

"It's great, the best emotion ever.

"Nothing can beat winning gold.

"I believed only in gold, I trained only for gold."

Rashitov topped his performance at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games where, as a 16-year-old, he took silver after losing 11-8 in the boys' under-48kg final to Russia's Dmitrii Shishko. He had previously beaten him 31-28 in the final of the YOG qualification tournament.

That was a massive indication of Rashitov's talents, and further confirmation arrived in July 2019 at the Asian Junior Taekwondo Championships in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Iran dominated the event, taking 10 gold medals at Prince Hamzah Hall, but Rashitov bucked the trend as he became one of two Uzbek winners, beating Iran's Pasha Atarodi 25-13 in the under-58kg class.

In October of the same year, he added another gold to his collection with victory in the men's 58kg event at the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan, China.

Reduced to just one international outing in the COVID-19 dominated year of 2020 - when he reached the last four of the Turkish Open - he began 2021 with victory at the same event in his opening competition before moving on to Tokyo….