HIDILYN DIAZ and her team are focused on the 2020 Asian Weightlifting Championships in Uzbekistan in March next year for the Rio 2016 silver medalist to formally secure a ticket to the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics.
The dates have yet to be announced by the International Weightlifting Federation but Diaz said they have concentrated on the tournament in the capital Tashkent.
“There’s no formal date yet, but that’s what we’ve been waiting and preparing for,” the 29-year-old Diaz told BusinessMirror on Friday. “Our mindset is already set on that and to Olympics in Tokyo.”
Diaz actually doesn’t need to win gold in Tashkent, neither is she pressured for a podium finish. All she needs to do is participate.
The top 8 athletes in the world for each of the 14 weight classes for men and women will qualify for the Tokyo Olympics provided that they participated in at least six IWF-sanctioned tournaments.
Diaz, gold medalist in the Jakarta 2018 Asian Games, is ranked No. 2 in the women’s 55 kgs category with 3,717.0982 points, behind China’s Jiang Huihua (4,667.8878). Below Diaz are two more Chinese, Liao Qiuyun, Zhang Wanquiong and Li Yajun.
The Tashkent tournament will be Diaz’s sixth IWF-sanctioned event.
“I have been preparing since March and I’m too excited because I have to wait one year for this qualifying tournament,” she said. “A lot of things happened in my life but team HD [Hidilyn Diaz] chooses to fight and with guidance of our God, I am ready and very excited although a little bit nervous.”
Diaz has been training since the lockdown with her Chinese Coach Kaiwen Gao and conditioning Coach Julius Naranjo in Jasin District in Malacca, Malaysia.
The first available Olympic qualifying tournament is the South-American, Ibero-Amercan and Open Championship set from February 23 to 27 in Colombia, while the other qualifiers will run until April 30. But Diaz has already marked Uzbekistan in her program.
“We don’t like to go that far because of limited budget,” said Diaz, who, besides the Asian Games, also saw action in the 2019 Asian Championships in Ningbo, China, the 2019 World Championship in Pattaya, Thailand, where she bagged a bronze, and the 30th Southeast Asian Games in Manila where she also topped the podium.
She got her fifth Olympic qualifying tournament, the 2020 Roma World Cup last January, where she bagged three gold medals—snatch (93 kgs) and clean and jerk (119 kgs) and total lift (212 kgs) in the 55-kg class.
“After Tashkent, we’re planning to go home to the Philippines for one week and we’re praying for a vaccine,” she said.
For Filipinos—world champion gymnast Carlos Yulo, boxers Eumir Felix Marcial and Irish Magno and pole vaulter EJ Obiena—have so far qualified for the Tokyo Olympics which were rescheduled for July 23 to August 8.