She may be considered Mexico’s best-ever Olympic female athlete, but that’s all in the past for Maria del Rosario Espinoza…
The 25-year-old Mexican taekwondo practitioner – the only woman to win all possible titles in her sport – is planning to relaunch her athletic career from scratch as if she were starting off as a rookie.
“I’m going to clear the ledger and start all over, that’s how I handle myself and will handle myself,” said Espinoza, a double-medalist in Olympic taekwondo. “It’s like if the World (Championships) next year were the first, just like the next Olympic Games.”
Espinoza was one of the Mexican athletes to receive the National Sports Prize on Sunday from President Enrique Peña Nieto.
She most recently won a bronze medal in the 67-kilo class at the 2012 London Games over the summer, continuing a string of victories dating back to the 2007 World Championships and Pan American Games.
Espinoza won medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Games.
She’s the only woman to win all the possible titles in her sport.
“I have a lot of things going for me now and the maturity can help me a lot in taking advantage of everything so that things will go well,” said Espinoza.