WORLD champion weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz-Naranjo will train in the United States and Japan this year to go after that second Olympic gold medal in the 2024 Paris Games that should seal her place as one the greatest, if not the greatest, athletes the country has produced.
“I will do my best for the country,” she said.
Ms. Diaz-Naranjo, who snared a golden treble in the World Championships in Bogota, Colombia a month ago, has already embraced the fact that she had to move up the weight class at 59 kilograms after her original division, the 55kg, was scrapped from the Paris Games calendar.
It was in the lighter class that the Zambaonga City-born icon struck the country’s historic gold in the quadrennial event in Tokyo two years ago.
She will have a chance to test the waters as she has lined up the Phnom Penh Southeast Asian Games set May 5 to 17 and the Hangzhou Asian Games slated Sept. 23 to Oct. 8 as among the competitions she will compete at in her busy 2023 schedule.
Meanwhile, Ms. Diaz-Naranjo lauded PSC chief Richard Bachmann for his full support to athletes. — Joey Villar