Skateboarding champ Didal gets 3 dogs as pets
MARGIELYN DIDAL has made herself scarce these days.
Especially to media.
“That’s Margie, she’s shy to interviews especially when she’s not competing,” veteran Cebu sports editor Caecent
No- ot Magsumbol of the
Freeman told the Businessmirror. “And even when she’s competing, she hardly, if not at all, grants an interview before she competes.”
“Margie often tells me ‘why interview me, I have nothing to say or talk about,” No- ot Magsumbol added. “But after her event, and of course, after she wins, she’s very available.”
So the Businessmirror sought Didal’s coach, Dani Bautista, instead.
“Margie’s a dog lover now,” Bautista said. “In fact, she has three dogs.”
Didal has two Shi Tzu and one Labrador, more than enough to keep her busy during the lockdown.
Bautista said Didal stayed home during the entire Covid-19 pandemic quarantine, but built herself a mini ramp at the front yard of her family’s house in Barangay Lahug.
“She didn’t really do much during the lockdown. She was just at home,” Bautista said. “As you know, skating should be played in public, and because we weren’t allowed to go out, she stayed home with her family.”
Didal is the fourth in a brood of five in the Lito and Julie Didal family, whose kwek-kwek business gained popularity as fast as the skateboarder did when she won a gold medal in the 2018 Asian Games in Palembang, Indonesia.
In fact, the family’s special kwek-kwek— quail eggs bathed in flour and deep-fried—is being sold online in Cebu and one of their most popular customers is Philippine Basketball Association Legend Ramon Fernandez, now a Philippine Sports Commission Commissioner, who has made Cebu his home.
“Her family cooks the most delicious ‘kwek-kwek,” Fernandez said. “I am very proud of her because she knows to find a way to survive the lockdown.”
Red Bull built a skatepark in Cebu primarily because of Didal and Bautista said the double gold medalist in the 30th Southeast Asian Games would be back in training soon for her bid to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics next year.
“Hopefully next month, we can have two more of our athletes to join her in training,” Bautista said.
Olympic qualifying tournaments in the US, Japan, Peru and London were postponed for early next year because of the pandemic.
“Margie will surely shoot for those qualifiers. She’s focused on the Tokyo Olympics,” he said.