(CNN) -- She was dubbed "The Assassin" after winning gold at the London 2012 Olympics, but Kaori Matsumoto prefers to be known as "Beast." Her coach, however, says she is more like Peter Pan -- and the judo star herself claims she once saw a fairy like Tinker Bell. A self-confessed lover of junk food, Matsumoto is far from your average athlete -- and she is breaking new ground in a most traditional sport that was founded in her native Japan in the late 1800s. "No-one like her has won the Olympics before," Harumi Nakahashi, Matsumoto's coach at the Four Leaf Japan Judo Club, told CNN's Human to Hero series.
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Kaori Matsumoto is the first Japanese woman judoka to win Olympic gold in 57 kg division
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She was the only member of Japan's judo team to claim a title at London 2012
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One of her coaches describes her as being "like Peter Pan, with a heart of a young boy"
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Matsumoto is known for fighting with her "wild" spirit rather than technique
And one time from that bucket, a tiny person this size -- like @placeholder without the wings -- came out and flew away.