Xian Dongmei celebrates on the podium after the women's 52kg final match Sunday in Beijing. [Agencies]

Liu Jiahui was the luckiest girl in China last night. Her mom, Xian Dongmei, became the first Chinese athlete to win an Olympic medal after giving birth to a child.

The "Super Mom" defeated judokas from Spain, Portugal, Algeria and Democratic People's Republic of (DPRK) Korea in the 52kg category to become China's first judo athlete to retain her Olympic title. She is also the first judoka to win two Olympic golds.

"It is very hard to defend a title in women's judo. Everybody told me it would be difficult," said the 32-year-old woman from Guangdong Province after winning.

Indeed, she suffered for her sport, needing two nails inserted into her ailing left knee, after almost 20 years of intensive training.

Xian even endured being called a "vicious wife", after she married her trainer, Liu Bo, whom she had thrown to the ground countless times.

She has also been called a "cold-hearted" mother, since she gave up feeding her daughter just seven months after birth, as she needed to get in shape quickly to train for the Games.

But on the court, Xian knew she had to put emotions behind her in order to become a fearless judoka. "I didn't think about my family during the matches. Instead, I tried to put away the distraction, concentrate on the matches and fight at my top level," she said.

All of Xian's four fights Sunday were of the highest quality, as she applied both her aggression and counter-attack skills to great success.

With a bye in the first round, Xian defeated Spain's Ana Carrascosa in just over one minute with ippon.

After that came her biggest challenge in the tournament - Telma Monteiro from Portugal, a judo protg who has performed extremely well since Athens Games.

Still, Xian came from behind to defeat the 21-year-old with ippon with 45 seconds to go.

Xian's best moment of the day was when she used one of her old tricks as a wrestler to overthrow Soraya Haddad from Algeria with an ippon after four minutes in the semi-finals.

In the last fight, she also succeeded in taming An Kun-ae from the DPRK before a raucous crowd at the Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium.

"Very solid and excellent performance from such a great judoka," said a teary Fu Guoyi, Xian's coach. "Three ippon victories. This is amazing."

Xian also had tears welling in her eyes when 8,000 spectators sang the national anthem with her on the podium.

"I owe my thanks to my family, for their lasting support," she said. "They didn't come to Beijing, because they were afraid they may distract me in Beijing. So I called them just now. They were very happy.

"Apart from that, I think it's time to take some time off."

Presumably to look after young Liu Jiahui.