Silver medalist of the Olympics Games in Rio will head the Philippine national team in Ashgabat
Silver medalist of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro Hidilin Diaz will lead the team of the Philippines in the 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. In an interview with The Philippine Star, she shared her attitude and told how she was getting ready to go to the podium in Ashgabat. 26-year-old Hidilin is the first athlete from the Philippines who won the silver Olympic medal in the weight category of 53 kg, Diaz raised 200 kg. At the Games in Ashgabat, she expects quite intense competition, primarily from China, Taipei, Korea and Thailand. For example, one of the familiar rivals in Rio, who won gold medal, is from Taipei, the other, who won bronze, is from South Korea. "For me, the upcoming Asian Games will be almost the same as the previous Olympics," Diaz admits. Competitions at the 5th Games “Ashgabat 2017”, according to Hidilin, will be an important milestone for her on the way to the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020, where she will try to win the elusive gold medal. The national team of the Philippines in the 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games included 105 athletes. Today, the fellow countrymen are not in a hurry to expect the team of Philippines to win a certain quantity of gold medals, because during the Southeast Asian Games, the team met expectations only in half. The Southeast Asian Games took place in the second half of August this year in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), and medals of four and a half dozen sports disciplines were played there. The national team of Philippines, which included about 500 athletes, won 24 gold medals and 6th team classification. In Ashgabat, the team of Philippines will compete in 16 of 21 sports included in the 5th Asian Games program: swimming, athletics, bowling, chess, cycling, tennis, sport dance, billiards, muay thai, jujitsu, taekwondo, sambo, kickboxing, kurash, wrestling and weightlifting. The national team of Philippines travels to Ashgabat by the chartered aircraft on September 14.
