THE country’s first gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics, and the Olympic record that went with it, was the product of the hard work Hidilyn Diaz and “Team HD” put together for the last two years.
Diaz is forever thankful for winning the gold medal in the 55kg women’s weightlifting.
“For me, for ‘Team HD,’ we’ll always look back sa mga pinagdaanan namin. Hindi naging madali, may mga doubts nu’ng start ng journey, pero hindi kami nag-give up,” said Diaz.
The members of ‘Team HD’ are Chinese coach Gao Kaiwen, strength and conditioning coach Julius Naranjo, sports nutritionist Jeaneth Aro and psychologist Dr. Karen Trinindad.
Before the Olympics, the journey of ‘Team HD’ was featured in a four-part documentary series on the Facebook page of Kick-Start Coffee Brewed Awakening entitled “Let’s Go HD!”
The documentary series allowed the Zamboanga City native to do a “video diary,” naturally done in a free-flowing and heartfelt videos showing glimpses of the struggles, the highs and lows of being an elite athlete while she was in training camp in Malaysia.
“I hope to inspire a lot of Filipino people (with the documentary). That’s the purpose… malaman ng mga kapwa natin Pilipino kung ano ‘yung naging journey ko and sana ma-inspire sila,” said Diaz, 30.
