Diaz ready for Rome Olympic qualifier

Credit to Author: Tempo Desk| Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2020 08:31:37 +0000

With less than two weeks before flying to Italy for the Rome 2020 World Cup, Hidilyn Diaz has been doing twice-a-day training to get her fully ready for the tournament.

Hidilyn Diaz (photo from Waylon Galvez)

“Ready na ako,” said Diaz, while catching her breath after doing a repetition of combined sprint and drills with an 8kg medicine ball for 10 minutes Monday at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Manila.

“Training sa umaga, and then training uli ako sa hapon,” added the 28-year-old pride of Zamboanga City.

In the morning session, Diaz does strengthening and conditioning workouts with coach Julius Irvin Naranjo, while perfecting her techniques under Chinese mentor Kaiwen Gao in the afternoon.

Diaz and her team composed of Naranjo, Gao and massage therapist Belen Bañas will leave for Rome on Jan. 18 to get acclimatize with the weather and continue training before the Jan. 27 to 31 event.

A gold medalist in the 2018 Asian Games, Diaz has also won the bronze medal during the 2017 world championship in the 53kg category in Anaheim, USA and last year in the 55kg division in Pattaya, Thailand.

Diaz participated in the same 53kg category when she won the gold medal in the Asian Games in Indonesia and when she pocketed the silver medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics in Brazil.

This time, she is back in the 55kg – where she said she is more suited and comfortable with – and so far, she is at No. 5 in the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) world rankings.

The event in Rome serves as an Olympic Qualifying Tournament or OQT, and Diaz hopes for a podium finish to earn points and sustain her spot in the IWF to keep her in the race for automatic spot for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

“That’s my goal, to finish in the top three,” said Diaz.

“Maganda ang traininbg kasi naibalik ko na yung dati kong lakas, at yung kumpiyansa ko bumalik na. Confident naman ako na maganda ang maipapakita ko sa Rome kasi maganda yung training ko since last year sa China and Taiwan,” added Diaz.

After winning her first gold medal in the 30th Southeast Asian Games last month month, Diaz improved her ranking points to 3.632.0672.

Currently leading in the 55kg category are Chinese weightlifters Jiang Huihua (4,667.8878), Liao Qiuyun (4,288.9622), Zhang Wanqiong (4,212.6639) a
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