Where are all the haters now?
Extraordinary weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz surely silenced her doubters after giving the Philippines its first-ever gold medal, officially ending its 97-year drought with a victory in the Women's 55kg in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
All the pain. All the tiredness. All gone after Diaz successfully lifted her third clean and jerk attempt at 127 kilograms. With this triumphant attempt, she overtook then-frontrunner Liao Qiuyun of China by just one point to bring home the historic gold.
Her historic Olympic win is just one on her long list of weightlifting accomplishments. With a 4th place finish in the Asian Weightlifting Championships, she was able to qualify for the Olympics.
Even before this qualifier, she already had great achievements, most notably the silver medal win in Rio de Janeiro. Aside from this, she has 3 bronzes in World Championship tournaments, 1 of each medal category in Asian Championship tournaments, 1 gold medal in Asian Games and 2 golds, 2 silvers and 1 bronze medal in various Southeast Asian Games.
But the path to victory was never easy for the Zamboanga native. She suffered at the hands of her countrymen. Who couldn't remember the time when Hidilyn Diaz was asking for help and all she got from some Filipinos were harassment and cyberbullying? Worse, she was a victim of red-tagging and linked to a plot to oust President Rodrigo Duterte, even when there is no evidence to back this up.
But now, where are these people who bullied her? Congratulate here, congratulate there. Now they're in. But we must never forget what they did. They harassed her just because she gave constructive criticism about the system and the facilities. Now they have the nerve to congratulate her? It's outrageous, and they didn't even apologize for it.
One thing is certain. We need to fix politics in sports. There is no reason for people to cry out loud if athletes ask for help. There is no reason for the likes of Chot Reyes, who by the way, choked in the Indonesia final match to coach the basketball team over proven, more accomplished Tab Baldwin. There is no reason for arguably this generation's best coach Ramil De Jesus to not coach the women's volleyball team. It roots to interference of higher-ups just because they didn't like a particular person. It roots to nonsense politics in sports.
If we want more athletes to have the same fate as Hidilyn Diaz, we need to fix the system.
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