BEIJING - Karine Sergerie looked forward to a long-denied glass of red wine to numb the pain of her broken toe.
The Olympic silver medallist in taekwondo had fought all day Friday with a smashed baby toe suffered in her first bout of the day.
"I just sucked it up. Excuse my expression, but that's what I did," the 23-year-old from Sainte-Catherine, Que., said.
"It is a game. You have to hide everything and give it everything. You can't just stop because you broke something."
The cost of winning a medal in the women's 67-kilogram class was evident in the walking wounded to the medallists' news conference.
Winner Hwang Kyungseon of South Korea shuffled through the hall holding onto the wall. The Olympic champion said she heard her knee crack in the quarter-final.
One of the two bronze medallists, Gwladys Patience Epangue of France, couldn't put full weight on her foot and limped gingerly through the interview area.
None of that was evident on the mat as the women flew at each other with fists and feet.
Taekwondo is a martial art of kicks and hand strikes with more emphasis on kicking skills than hand blows. Points are awarded for contact to the chest and head.
Sergerie and Hwang waged a fierce battle for gold. The South Korean scored the winning point on a spinning counterkick in the third and final round in a 2-1 decision.
Sergerie battled her disappointment by staring at the rising Canadian flag during the medal ceremony.
"I'm not going to go up there and start screaming and crying like a child," she said. "I still won silver and I hope my country is proud of me. Part of this is for them.
"I was looking at the flag and hopefully the next time it will be in the middle."
Sergerie widened the cross-section of sports that produced medals for Canada in the back half of these Olympic Games.
Her Olympic medal was Canada's second in taekwondo. Winnipeg's Dominique Bosshart won bronze when the sport made its debut at the 2000 Games.
Sergerie switched from karate in 1997 when the International Olympic Committee decided to bring taekwondo into the Games.
Her father Rejean, a retired police detective, has coached her all her life, although she had national team coach Alain Bernier with her at the Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium.
Rejean didn't come to Beijing, but stayed up all night with friends and family on Montreal's south shore to watch his daughter spar.
"When I told him I wanted to go to the Olympics he said he was going to be with me all the way and that he was going to support me and make sure I was here one day," she said.
Her boyfriend and friends had offered to come to Beijing, but Sergerie felt she had to do this on her own.
"I'm tested on my own. I have to figure things out of my own," she explained. "I know that my dad was with people that I love and people who care for him as well. They were all there to support each other so I think that comforts me."
She's the first Canadian to win a world championship in taekwondo, which she did last year in the 63-kilogram class.
But weight classes at the Olympics were halved from eight to four, which meant the five-foot-four, 138-pound fighter faced some heavier opponents with longer reaches in the 67-kg division.
Hwang's height and weight wasn't listed, but the world champion in 67 kilograms was clearly taller.
Sergerie makes up for her stature with speed and she prepared for bigger opponents by fighting with tall partners in training.
"You have to just find out what you have to do to make it and I knew what I had to do," she said. "Next time it will have to be better."
Earlier Friday, Sebastien Michaud of Quebec City lost his quarter-final bout to Rashad Ahmadov of Azerbaijan by judges' decision in the 80-kilogram division.
Sergerie was left off the 2004 Olympic team even though she'd won a silver medal at the world championship in 2003.
She didn't win a Canadian selection trials to go to the Pan American Games, and after thinking she'd done enough to get to Athens, it was discovered she needed to place at the Pan Ams.
"I was very upset," she recalled. "In the end, I told myself if I wanted to go to the Games, I had to do everything in my power to go."
That included denying herself some of the good things in life.
"When I want to go out and have a simple glass of wine, I have to think 'Can I afford to drink that glass of wine?' because when you train after, you feel it," she said.
"In moments like right now where you didn't get the result you wanted you ask yourself 'Did I really give everything?' and you think about those moments. I feel I did everything I could. Now I can have a good bottle of wine."
