HIDILYN: 729 DAYS TO PARIS OLYMPICS
HIDILYN DIAZNARANJO has her calendar marked: 729 days to go before the Paris 2024 Olympics. “We only have 729 days left before the Olympics and even though I don’t need to prove anything, I still want to do my very best for Philippine weightlifting,” the 31-year-old Diaznaranjo said on Monday as she took a break from training with young athletes at the Saulog Sports Complex in Tagbilaran City.
And that means a honeymoon with now husband Julius Naranjo, her coach and trainer, had to be scrapped. They got married last July 26, exactly a year after she won the country’s first Olympic gold medal in Tokyo— in Baguio City.
“Let’s set aside the honeymoon break,” added Diaz-naranjo, who celebrated on Monday the sixth year anniversary of the silver medal she won at the Rio 2016 Summer Games in Brazil.
Diaz-naranjo and Naranjo were invited to oversee the training facility in Bohol which was put up and maintained by former Red Iron Eaters, the monicker for members of the University of the East weightlifting team which also were the same members of the national squad in the 1980s.
While there, she didn’t waste time to lift barbells to the delight of upand-coming weightlifters who look to her as their idol and role model.
“This is what I wanted ever since—to be excellent in my sport,” Diaz-naranjo said. “Weightlifting is my source of happiness.”
“These hands are reminders that despite those things that I accomplished, weightlifting has pushed me to continue to work my hardest for our country,” added Diaznaranjo, who has also in her collection the Jakarta 2018 Asian Games gold medal and back-to-back titles at the 2019 Philippines and 2022 Vietnam Southeast Asian Games.
Diaz-naranjo’s schedule for the next 23 months is hectic. For 2022, the Air Force Staff Sergeant from Barangay Mampang in Zamboanga City has the International Weightlifting Federation World Championships in November in Bogota, and in 2023, lined up are the 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia, 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou.
In between are six qualifiers for Paris which she has to complete to make the Olympic grade anew.
“Join me in my crusade to go for my last lift,” said Diaz, who vowed to raise a family and become a full-time wife and mom after Paris. “I’m asking for your prayers.”
“Team HD will be with me throughout the whole process but again
I need your entire support and prayers. I’m determined to do more for our country,” she said. “I’m claiming this for the love of God and our country.”
The husband-and-wife tandem established a training center in Jala-jala, Rizal, with Diaz-naranjo still attending to her Business Management course at College of Saint Benilde.