ALTHOUGH marriage and family loom over the horizon, Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Hidylin Diaz will still have enough time to train, qualify and participate in the 2024 Paris Olympics, and possibly set another golden milestone, according to her former coach and confidante Elbert Atilano.
“We gave her 18 months to prepare intensively for the Rio Olympic and Tokyo Olympic Games. And she won a silver and gold, respectively, so we believe she still has enough time to prepare if she wants to have a family now,” Atilano said.
Diaz got engaged last November to her longtime Guamanian boyfriend and fitness conditioning coach Julius Naranjo, who now also acts as her new coach after her Chinese mentor, Gao Caiwen, left when she won the Olympic mint at the expense of Chinese lifter Liao Qiuyun.
Diaz put herself and the country in the annals of Philippine sports by hoisting a record-breaking 224 kilograms, beating Liao, to become the first Filipino to bag an Olympic gold last July.
“If Hidy can get married and start a family right away, then she may still have time to train and participate in the Paris Olympics Games. I strongly believe she can do it with 18 months of hard training,” said Atilano, who is credited for the international success of the Zamboanga City-born sports star.
As the former athletic director of the Universidad de Zamboanga, Atilano, a former national weightlifting coach, saw Diaz’s potential to become a world-class athlete and recruited her at the age of the 10 to the school’s sports program.
Now a Zamboanga City councilor, Atilano said it would not be hard for Diaz to compete in the women’s 59kg division of the Paris Olympic two years.
“If Hidy was able to make the weight at 55 kilograms, what more at the 59? But competing in Paris will also depend on the Olympic qualifying process in the sport, which keeps on changing,” Atilano noted.
Diaz and Naranjo spent the Christmas holidays in the country but have the option to return to Malaysia to resume training for the Vietnam Southeast Asian Games in May and the Hangzhou Asian Games in China in September.
