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BEIJING—Hidilyn
Diaz, too, didn’t win any medal. But she didn’t
disappoint.
At 17
and only in her first Olympics, Diaz, the pride of
Mampang, Zamboanga City, finished second to last in the
women’s 58 kg class of weightlifting in the 2008 Beijing
Olympics Monday afternoon.
No one
inside the Beijing University of Aeronautics and
Astronautics gym gave the Filipina a second look, but
members of Team Philippines here had all the reasons to
be proud of her.
At the
Water Cube later in the evening, James Bernard Walsh
placed 29th in the men’s 200 meters butterfly heats but
also attained his and the national swimming
association’s modest goal—break the two-minute barrier.
Walsh
clocked 1:59.39 (his previous best was 2:00.42) and was
the No. 1 in his heat, but was way off the 1:53.70—a new
Olympic record—which the sensational Michael Phelps,
already owner of two gold medals here, registered in
topping the qualifyings.
Those
numbers by Walsh, though, would stand as the best by any
swimmer from the Southeast Asian region, as well as by
any Filipino, in the event.
The two
national and regional record performances were relief
enough to offset Eric Ang’s last-place finish in
shooting’s men’s individual trap Sunday.
Diaz’s
107 kgs in the clean and jerk broke her own Philippine
record by two kilos and her total—she did 85 in the
snatch—of 192 now stands as the new national standard.
But she
said she wasn’t satisfied with her performance.
“My
performance would have been okay, but I didn’t achieve
my target of 110 [clean and jerk],” said Diaz, who fell
in love with weightlifting when she saw her cousins
train in a makeshift gym in their backyard in Mampang.
Diaz
earned a trip to Beijing as a wild-card entry courtesy
of the International Olympic Committee. Her benefactors,
particularly weightlifting association president Rep.
Monico Puentevella, are starting to polish Diaz for the
London 2012 Games.
“I am
proud of her for breaking the [RP] record. I believe
she’ll be good for three Olympics, but I hope she
doesn’t get married early enough,” said Puentevella of
Diaz, who at five-foot-one possesses the charms of a
lovable Filipina probinsyana.
“She’s
the future of weightlifting,” added Puentevella. He is
right. The Philippines, like what its Southeast Asian
Games neighbors have been doing, should focus on
weightlifting. Thailand won a gold medal, its fifth
overall in the Olympics, Sunday through weightlifter
Prapawadee Jarroenrattanatarakoon in the women’s 53-kg
class. Vietnam also barged into the medal tally board
with a silver; so did Indonesia with a bronze, both from
weightlifting.
Diaz
beat out for last place the Solomon Island’s Wendy Hale,
a 21-year-old who could only manage a 78 in the snatch
and a 95 in the clean and jerk for a 173 total. There
were 12 competitors in Diaz’s event. Diaz acknowledged
how strong her field was, but churned out strong and
encouraging words. “They are strong, but the day will
come when I can reach them. I’ll return and beat them,”
she said in Filipino.
Diaz’s
class was dominated by 29-year-old Chen Yanging of the
host country who became the first woman to win two
Olympic medals in weightlifting. A holder of a masters
degree in Psychology, Chen won the same event in Athens
and on Monday here, set a new Olympic record of
106-138-244.
China
started to break away in the overall medals race with
eight golds to its name. The hosts also had three
silvers and two bronzes to lead Korea (4-2-0) and
perennial overall gold medal leader the United States,
which had three golds to show after three days of
competitions. |
