Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon Bags Thailand’s First Gold Medal

Here’s tip number one for those of you Olympic wannabes: if you want to win an Olympic gold medal, change your name to something like Supercalifragilistic Expialidocious. Will it work? The trick worked for Thai weightlifter Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon so it might work for you too.

Legend has it [actually it's a true story] that Prawadee, then named Chanpim Kantatian wasn’t sure whether she can make it to the Thai Olympic team so she consulted a fortune teller who advised her to change her name. So Chanpim Kantatian became Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon. And then she went on to win an Olympic gold medal, the first for Thailand in the Beijing Games. Congratulations to our Thai friends. Kaw sadeng kwam yin dee duay!!

Interesting side note: The Canadian Broadcasting Company is reporting that China could have won this event if “not for a rule that limits competitors to four women per country”. More here.

Edited to Add: Prapawadee will be US$314,000 richer based on Thailand’s incentive scheme for Olympic medalists. Want to know the financial incentives given by other countries? Here’s the link: How Much Money Do Olympians Make? Thailand is giving out the highest incentive so far followed by the Philippines’ US$220,000.

Photo source: xinhuanet