COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- Friendship proved stronger than the drive to win for Olympic taekwondo hopeful Esther Kim.
 
 She forfeited a match to her injured friend, Kay Poe, so Poe could make the U.S. Olympic team for the Summer Games in Sydney.
 
 "She came up to me and said, 'I know you won't want me to, but I really want to bow down to you,"' said Poe, 18, who didn't initially accept Kim's offer and wanted to fight.
 
 "I just started crying, because this was her chance just as much as it was mine. Really, it was the most heartfelt moment of my life. I don't think it matters who won. We're both winners."
 
 Poe entered the taekwondo trials ranked No. 1 in the world in the flyweight class and destined for Sydney. A left knee injury during the trials' semifinals left her unable to compete against Kim at the Olympic Training Center on Saturday.
 
 That seemed to end her hopes of a September gold medal.
 
 But Kim, a huge underdog if Poe had been healthy, gave up her free trip to Australia by forfeiting the match to her friend from Houston with a dramatic bow down, the sport's equivalent of a forfeit.
 
 Poe and Kim, who train under Kim's father, Jin, have been friends for 13 years.
 
 With Poe unable to walk Saturday, Kim assisted her to the mat for the women's flyweight championship match. When they reached the mat, they sat side by side in chairs.
 
 They were too emotional to stand for the official bow down, which ends a match. Many minutes passed as Poe, Kim and their coach hugged and cried while surrounded by reporters and cameras. Poe even rested her injured left leg on Kim's lap while a photographer snapped pictures for them. Eventually, the flyweights made it to the center of the mat, embraced and teared up again before Kim's bow down.
 
 "(Poe said), 'We have to fight, we have to fight,"' said Kim, 20, who insisted she has no regrets. "I was like, 'Hey, you can't even stand up. How are we going to fight?' We both got really quiet, and there was a long moment of silence. Then I looked at her and said, 'God, we won. We finally did it. We won.' I've always said that if she won, I would always feel like I won, too, because I know I was part of her winning and vice versa.
 
 "At that point, we started crying and said, 'We finally did it, we finally did it, we finally won."'