MANILA — Olympian Hidilyn Diaz will be enshrined in the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Hall of Fame during the San Miguel Corporation-PSA Awards Night at the Manila Hotel on Jan. 27.
The 33-year-old weightlifter from Barangay Mampang in Zamboanga City delivered the country's first Olympic gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Diaz will share center stage with gymnast Carlos Yulo, who will be honored as Athlete of the Year in the grand celebration by the country’s oldest media organization headed by its president Nelson Beltran, sports editor of The Philippine Star.
Yulo, 24, scored a rare double gold by topping the men’s floor exercise and vault at the Paris Olympics.
Diaz is the latest athlete to be elevated to the Hall of Fame by the country’s sports writing fraternity since the late track and field great Lydia De Vega in 2022.
The other Hall of Famers were bowlers Paeng Nepomuceno and Bong Coo, chess grandmaster Eugene Torre, pool idol Efren ‘Bata’ Reyes, the late FIDE president Florencio Campomanes, and boxer Manny Pacquiao.
Diaz is the daughter of a tricycle driver who turned to farming and fishing. At the age of nine, she began lifting weights using makeshift barbels.
Her first competition was the 2002 Batang Pinoy and she later joined the national pool.
Diaz bagged her first medal (bronze) at the 2007 Southeast Asian Games in Nakhon Ratchasima when she was 16 and a year later, made her Olympic debut at the 2008 Beijing Games as a wild card entry.
She also qualified for the London Olympics but failed to make the podium for the second time.
Diaz, a gold medalist in the World Championships, Asian Championships, Asian Games, and the SEA Games, got the silver medal in the women's 53kg category at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the country's first medal after two decades. PNA