THE first time I saw members of the Cebu Weightlifting Association in action was when I happened to be in Ayala Center Cebu when they held the national students’ championships a few weeks back. Hidilyn Diaz, who has held her own tournaments and clinics in the past couple of years, was also there.
I’ve always wondered why there hasn’t been any tournament or event initiated by the Philippine Weightlifting Association Inc. despite the popularity of the sport because of Hidilyn Diaz’s triumph in Rio. It was then that I learned the reason, the same reason the CWA was holding its own national students’ championship.
The PWA is basically dead.
Just as in any death--or in problem of any NSA--it involves the president leaving. According to the CWA, the president left for the US and the normal succession should have been the vice president taking over (shades of tennis problem in this one), but that’s not what happened with the PWA.
To make a long story short, another group--the Samahang Weightlifting ng Pilipinas--got into the picture, one headed by a former PWA president in Monico Puentevella. Right now, the POC has said it won’t recognize the SWP but only the PWA and the set of officers it last knew.
And here comes the problem.
Hidilyn Diaz won in the Rio Olympics and Hidilyn Diaz won in the Asian Games, the same Hidilyn Diaz who is now, this early, being touted to win a gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
What’s the problem with that? Well, we only have one Hidilyn Diaz. Sure, there are other members of the weightlifting team. What I am emphasizing is that with an active NSA for weightlifting, one that has grassroots programs and tournaments all over the country, how many Hidilyn Diazes could we discover?
I’ve heard of Hidilyn’s name as early as 15 or more years ago, when she joined the 5-in-1 events of the PWA. Such events, of course, have been on hold because of the waiting game.
The CWA isn’t pre-empting the POC by insisting it should be the PWA that should be recognized as the rightful NSA over Puentevella’s SWP. What it is simply waiting for is a proper POC-supervised election so the dead NSA can be ressurected.
I hope the waiting game ends before the year ends.