WORLD IS AT HIDILYN’S FEET

“Duterte’s words in his final State of the Nation Address late in the afternoon of Monday were like a balm meant to soothe frayed nerves of a public stressed no end by the health crisis.

“In Tokyo, as she arrived for her rendezvous with destiny, Hidilyn vowed to go for it early, go for it hard. And with that record lift for the ages, she gloriously did.

On a day President Duterte assuaged the nation reeling from the effects of the pandemic that better things are yet to come, weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, as if on cue, started the ball rolling hours later by winning the country’s first ever Olympic gold in Tokyo, sending Filipinos in teary jubilation and ending nearly 100 years of sporting futility by the Philippines.

It was a lift, that sportswriters have termed, for the ages.

And why not indeed? Since first joining the Olympics in 1924, the closest we have ever come to the pinnacle of excellence in the quadrennial meet was the silver medal finish of boxer Anthony Villanueva in 1964 (ironically also in Tokyo) and later, the 1996 heartbreaker of Mansueto Velasco, another boxer, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Like a father assuring his children that things will be alright in the wake of the deadly virus, Duterte’s words in his final State of the Nation Address late in the afternoon of Monday were like a balm meant to soothe frayed nerves of a public stressed no end by the health crisis. Hidilyn’s triumph on the world stage, on the other hand, came like a fitting climax to a day of redemption for a people long savaged by inequities and hard-pressed looking for heroes at a time they badly needed them.

Woes are aplenty. There’s the deadly virus and its virulent strains affecting all aspects of their lives. Unemployment is massive. The economy is in tatters. Herd immunity, the escape route health authorities are hoping to cling by, is way far off still. Will the promised merrier Christmas ever come?

Duterte laid down a road map to recovery. Hidilyn sort of put the finishing touches. The long-cherished gold served as an exclamation point to a busy day of finding the panacea to all our aches, our heartbreaks as a nation.

It is quite easy to relate with our newfound hero. Like boxing icon Manny Pacquiao, Hidilyn grew up in poverty in a small village called Mampang near Zamboanga. She is a daughter of a farmer-turned-tricycle driver, one of six siblings who had to help their parents put food on the table.

Before capturing the country’s first ever gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics, getting into sports was farthest in the mind of Hidilyn who at a young age had only dreamed of becoming a banker so that she could lift her family out of poverty.

But when a local weightlifter and a cousin reportedly saw the build of the then 10-year-old Hidilyn, her fate took a turn for the better. The story goes that she was made to train with makeshift barbells made of plastic pipes with cast concrete weights at both ends.

In 2002, she joined her first-ever competition in weightlifting, in the 2002 Batang Pinoy games in Puerto Princesa, where she was one of a very small handful of participants in the sport. She won gold then because, as she told sportswriters, “Wala akong kalaban.”

Her feat in various competitions in the ensuing years turned Hidilyn into a household name. Her life story even became an episode of Maalaala Mo Kaya.

Her story was far from over though.

In the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Hidilyn would go on to deliver a gold for the Philippines, conquering the weightlifting women’s 53kg division.

In 2018, she began to take a firmer hold on the reins of her career. Reports said she set up her own team that, by 2019, would evolve into Team HD — a compact group of trainers and coaches, all dedicated to keeping Hidilyn in top shape.

When she started to train her eyes on Tokyo, Hidilyn, an Air Force service woman, had nothing but gold in her mind. She even had to live and train in exile in Malaysia for nearly two years, forced by circumstances by the global pandemic.

With a windfall of incentives expected to go as high as over P30 million for a gold medal from various sources, Hidilyn and other Filipinos athletes certainly didn’t have enough reasons not to fare well.

In Tokyo, as she arrived for her rendezvous with destiny, Hidilyn vowed to go for it early, go for it hard. And with that record lift for the ages, she gloriously did.

Now the world is at her feet.