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A final opponent had been dismantled and there was a gold medal around her neck, but Imane Khelif was not done throwing punches.
The Algerian at the centre of a gender row, over whom questions will now grow louder after she completed a Parisian stroll to Olympics glory, came into the post-fight press conference swinging.
Here, there was no ducking or dodging, only more powerful blows, this time raining down on the critics who say she should not have been here, fighting against women, after failing a sex test last year.
It took two minutes for the inevitable to be asked. What was her message to the haters? Khelif, as she has done so successfully over the last fortnight, took aim and did not miss.
‘I am fully qualified,’ she said. ‘I am a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman, I lived as a woman, I competed as woman - there is no doubt.’