AGE: 17 years old
SPORT: Women’s weightlifting, 58kilogram category
OLYMPIC EXPERIENCE: 1st-time Olympian 1st RP Olympic weightlifter since 1988 Youngest RP athlete in Beijing
JUST last March, Heidilyn Diaz reached a milestone in her life. She walked up the stage with her batchmates to celebrate their high-school graduation.
JUST last March, Heidilyn Diaz reached a milestone in her life. She walked up the stage with her batchmates to celebrate their high-school graduation.
In August, Diaz will march with the rest of the world to celebrate the Greatest Show on Earth.
A segment out of the Wish Ko Lang TV program for the 17-year-old lass from Zamboanga City, isn’t it?
“Every athlete has been dreaming of making it to the Olympics,” Diaz, the country’s lone Olympic weightlifter, said. “I am just lucky enough to achieve it at this very young age.”
Diaz’s regimen, considered not the usual kind girls her age take, proves hard work, not luck, thrust her into the Olympic limelight—a regimen that includes regular visits to the gym and, yes, lifting massive weights.
The Olympic dream was always in Diaz’s mind, but the original projection was getting to the London Games in 2012. It’s just that Diaz’s learning curve has become so steep she couldn’t be denied a ticket in Beijing.
Starting out in the Universidad de Zamboanga and in the Batang Pinoy national youth games, Diaz blossomed into a real force that had the national team noticing. She made it to the Asian Games in Doha in 2006 and then in the Southeast Asian Games last December in Thailand where she secured third place in the 58kg category.
Diaz’s mark of 80kg in the snatch and 100kg in the clean and jerk category in the her weight division are Philippine records.
The national federation took note of Diaz’s progress and potential that when a chance at fielding an Olympic wild card came up, the Philippine Weightlifting Association didn’t hesitate to list down Diaz’s name as a candidate.
While she is giddy about the opportunity, Diaz is realistic about her chances.
“Honestly, winning the medal is not going to be easy for somebody like me. But who knows, things might get better,” Diaz, currently a computer-science freshman, admitted. “Like other sports, weightlifting is unpredictable. So my goal now is to improve my game.”
Diaz admitted that she felt nervous when she found out she was going to the Olympics, but when the news had finally sunk in she realized the magnitude of the rare experience.
“I’m still young and I have all the time to prepare and improve, if not this year, maybe in the next Olympics,” she added.
Diaz said she has undergone a most stringent training in order to prepare for the Olympics. She was lifting 14 sessions a week that didn’t include the other exercises necessary to keep her fit. Not only has she developed a more fit physique, Diaz has also gained the kind of confidence necessary to challenge the world’s best.
“I’ve trained well and everybody around me has been intense,” Diaz said. “There’s some pressure I know, but I was thinking that if I continued on this regimen, something good will surely happen eventually.”
“She has a lot of potential,” Ramon Solis, Diaz’s coach who was the last RP lifter to appear in the Olympics, said.
“The Beijing trip will surely make her a better athlete and we are really targeting the next Olympics to win a medal.”
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