Yes, the belle from Zamboanga is going to be the new poster girl after impressively collaring the country’s first gold medal in the on-going quadrennial joust in Jakarta, Indonesia.
She lifted a total of 207 kgs to beat the strong field, including a Thai world champion and a silver medalist from Turkmenistan.
I wonder if any of the millions of Filipino tele-viewers saw what I had seen in Hidilyn moments before she was to lift the huge barbell on the podium.
I saw a positive aura around her body frame, including that very calm, serene and confident demeanor.
I tell you, did you see such in all the contestants as they heaved grunts and groans during their respective lifts?
No, I bet you did not.
But to tell you the stark truth, Philippine weightlifting was never given the attention it deserved even when Salvador del Rosario (if I remember correctly) won a world championship gold medal sometime in the late ‘70s. Thus, you will now relish, Hidilyn’s feat make her triumph sweeter than ever.
Hidilyn will next target the elusive gold in the Tokyo Olympics in the next two years, the venue where the first Olympic silver medal was won in boxing by the late Anthony Villanueva in 1964.
During this period of jubilation, the nation waited in bated breath, expecting the next Olympic harvest would be the first gold medal for the Philippines.
Unfortunately, our Olympic goals were somewhat stymied and Filipino sports fans needed to wait for 32 years before Villanueva’s herculean achievement was duplicated by flyweight Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco in the 1996 Atlanta edition. (Previous to this, his elder brother Roel snatched a bronze in the same weight category in the 1992 Barcelona Summer Games.)
I will declare strongly that she is highly favored to vie for the gold, taking in consideration the experiences she has picked up in her previous participation in the tough London and Rio Olympics (where she took the silver), past world championships and regional tournaments.
2020 could expectantly be a banner year in Philippine sports and I do hope sports officials of the PSC and the POC combine harmoniously and collaborate to ensure that Diaz’ training and preparation are not jeopardized because of politics, financial problems and internal intrigues.
Of course, I’m very certain that from now on, corporate entities wanting to promote and effectively market their consumer products would immediately instruct their ad agencies to have this humble Zambo belle sign a contract of endorsement as they had done previously with sports heroes coming home successfully from the Asiad and the Olympics.
But Hidilyn’s momentous glory is differently viewed inasmuch it was achieved by someone who was never given media attention in the past because weightlifting was not in the same popular category as basketball, boxing, track and field, swimming and some others.
Weightlifting was a sports relic much like in the Jurassic movie but Hidilyn gave it the attention that it now deserves.
My 3-in-1 coffee tastes better now. (Email your feedback to fredlumba@yahoo.com.)
