"HIDILYN DIAZ: More than gold- a Champion!
Gold medalist Philippines’ Hidilyn Diaz holds her medal on the podium
for the victory ceremony of the women’s 55kg weightlifting
competition during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Tokyo International Forum
in Tokyo on July 26, 2021. (Photo by Vincenzo PINTO / AFP) via Inquirer.net
At first, this page bid greetings for Hidilyn Diaz for the first gold medal in the Tokyo XXXII Olympiad.
For 97 years, Filipino athletes trained with all their best in pursuit of winning the gold medal. However, despite winning either silver or bronze, athletes who participated in a sports activity, instill in their minds to be faster, higher, and stronger in order to gain their success.
Right was Guillaume Faye, that sport is more than just promoting peace and goodwill, but instead it is to improve bodily performances in an intelligent way or to train for combat. In Diaz's case, she is an air force officer, sworn to defend the country like the other olympians of long ago- with their skill as in itself a form of military training, preparing a citizen in times of war.
On the other side, it is not surprising how Filipinos think of Olympics. Either they downplay it in favor of commercialised professional sports events, or by seeing politicians and business conglomerates suddenly having a thought of supporting athletes to gain favour from those who trained, worked hard to gain the prize. That again, right was Guillaume Faye, that "they feed a new sector of the entertainment industry which creates very few jobs but is often infiltrated by mafias, while mobilising huge financial resources from which many profit."
Pardon for the thought, especially when how Filipinos perceive sports as some entertainment laden with commercialism than seriously taken as a soft power like those of its neighbours. The government's half-hearted policy on sports showed concern for athletes be it facilities to those of allowances, what more of seeing sports officials focusing on their interests other than improving and promoting sports. Cannot blame concerned athletes especially Diaz in expressing grievances in public that made government apologists to slander, what more that the authorities themselves wrongly accused her of being part of a destabilisation plot in 2019. For a concerned would say isn't it that ridiculous to connect her to something she wasn't involved? Or was it because she expressed concern on the state of athletes that made some assholes to implicate her in something that's impossible? And now as she got the gold and all, they changed the narrative to that of praise- despite the fact that there are those who can't forget the slander and the bullshit that's thrown on her.
Anyway, to cut this thought short, hope that in Diaz's gold people should realise that sports isn't some entertainment alone, but a soft power a country that's to promote especially after 97 years of being gold-starved and now gain one (maybe soon another more if one wins in this Olympiad). Whereas neighbours did use culture, including sport as their promotion of their national power, why not in the Philippines as well? Also hope that there's more than gold for the athletes, but to create new champions, all imbued with what Pierre de Coubertin said:
"Citius, Altius, Fortius: Faster, Higher, Stronger."
That's all for now.