When Cha Yea-eun tore a ligament and broke a cartilage in her left knee in high school, she thought her career as a member of a taekwondo demonstration team was over.

She could no longer perform eye-popping acrobatics. But Cha discovered poomsae, a demonstration discipline of taekwondo where practitioners perform attack and defense moves in a sequence. Cha was hooked and hasn't looked back since.

The career transition paid off handsomely for the university student Sunday, in the form of her first Asian Games gold medal in Hangzhou, China.

She was crowned the women's individual champion in Hangzhou, South Korea's second gold medal in poomsae Sunday after Kang Wan-jin grabbed the men's title.

From the preliminary to the quarterfinals, athletes had to perform only "recognized" programs. For the semifinals and the final, they could do one recognized program and one "freestyle" routine.

Cha first fell in love with poomsae because of freestyle. She has struggled with the recognized part at times. And she barely got through the quarterfinals, the last match that required her to perform a recognized routine. Once she got over the hump, Cha cruised to the top of the podium.

"After I got past the quarterfinals, it gave me confidence that I could go all the way," Cha said of her narrow win over Thi Kim Ha Nguyen of Vietnam.

Cha said she wants more people to discover the beauty of poomsae, which is much lesser known than kyorugi, the sparring discipline of the martial art.

"I think I've shown the beauty of freestyle poomsae," Cha said. "With the gold medal, I think I can really call myself a poomsae athlete."

Sunday's gold medal is far from Cha's only international prize. She won both the Asian and the world titles in poomsae last year, and also captured the World University Games title this past July.

Source: Yonhap News Agency