Can I defeat any opponent? The way of thinking of high-level athletes!

Can I defeat any opponent?
The way of thinking of high-level athletes!

Ulugbek Rasitov from Uzbekistan participated in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in the 68 kg category. At the age of 18 at the time, it was his first participation in Olympic games. He had some accolades as a teenager as in 2018 he won the silver medal in 48kg at the Argentina Youth Olympics and in 2019 he won the 55kg gold medal in the Asian Junior Taekwondo Championships.
In Tokyo, having won the first match, he faced the 29-year-old South Korean Lee Dae-Hoon, who was already a two-time Olympic champion, in the quarterfinals.
For Rasitov, the data for the match were as follows: “I am 18 years old, without experience in corresponding events, without distinctions in the past at the men’s level, representing a country without distinctions at the Olympic Games in Taekwondo.” And “my opponent is the 29-year-old Lee Dae-Hoon, two-time Olympic champion, top of the World ranking, with countless awards and vast experience, representing the country with perhaps the longest tradition in the sport.”
The data was clearly against Rasitov, at this point the “mindset” gives the opponent a huge advantage, based on real data! But not for Rasitov…..
Without thinking about the past, without dealing with the “history” of the opponent, without analyzing the data, his thought “turned” only to “what I will do in the match!”. Looking for ways to win….
Since then he has won seven consecutive races, two Olympic gold medals in two events (Tokyo and Paris)! He also beat Lee Dae-Hoon…And for his country in Tokyo it was the first medal in the Olympic Games!