Philippines’ Elreen Ann Ando competes within the girls’s 64kg weightlifting competitors in the course of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Video games on the Tokyo Worldwide Discussion board in Tokyo on July 27, 2021. (AFP FILE PHOTO
Each time Elreen Ando and Vanessa Sarno see motion, they constantly trigger emotions of nostalgia for weightlifting chief Monico Puentevella.
And regardless of each lifters ending out of the rostrum within the latest 2021 Worldwide Weightlifting Federation World Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, their performances, Puentevella stated, convey again reminiscences of the torturous course of a sure athlete went by means of—a course of that ended with an Olympic gold.
“They remind me of Hidilyn (Diaz) in her early days,” stated Puentevella. The Samahang Weightlifting ng Pilipinas president was referring to the nation’s first Olympic champion in historical past, whose triumph in Tokyo modified Philippine sports activities without end. “And contemplating that the climate was down to 5 levels (Celsius), I’m pleased with them,’’ added Puentevella.
The 18-year-old Sarno, the present Asian champion within the girls’s 71 kilogram class, practically landed the bronze after she wound up tied with Sweden’s Patricia Strenius and Olivia Reeves of the USA, all of them lifting a complete weight of 231 kgs.
Sarno, nevertheless, misplaced the tiebreaker and settled for fifth place.
Ando, projected as one other Diaz inheritor obvious along with Sarno, likewise ended fifth within the girls’s 59kg after the Tokyo Olympian was unable to clear her final two makes an attempt.
Entered in the identical weight class as Sarno, Kristel Macrohon positioned seventh after lifting a complete of 228kg. The 2019 Southeast Asian Video games gold medalist tied Sarno within the snatch at 103kg, however managed simply 125kg within the clear and jerk.
“Ando and Macrohon failed of their final two lifts, efforts that might have meant a gold,’’ stated Puentevella,
The previous chair of the Philippine Olympic Committee is now counting Olympic berths for Paris in 2024, relying on the likes of John Febuar Ceniza (males’s 61kg) and Fernando Agad (55kg) to hurdle the qualifiers for the following Video games.
“If eight athletes are certified for the Paris Olympics, we have already got 5 developing—Sarno, Macrohon, Ando, Ceniza and Agad. All of them positioned within the prime eight with Sarno and Agad as first-timers on this planet championships,’’ stated Puentevella.
Backed by the Philippine Sports activities Fee, the native weightlifting affiliation nurtured Diaz into an Olympic champion, 13 years after qualifying for her first Olympics in 2008 in Beijing.
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