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- TITO S. TALAO

TOKYO – For Hidilyn Diaz, her fairy tale journey will not conclude with finding the Olympic pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Having imperiously brushed off suggestions that she was an over-the-hill weightlifter, and that her silver medal finish in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics was her swan song, Diaz categorically declared Tuesday that she wasn’t through spreading the gospel of her discipline and that she intends to continue competing, just hours after she delivered the Philippines’ first-ever gold in the Olympic Games.

With an incentive windfall expected to reach no less than P50 million – in cash and in kind – awaiting her victorious return from the XXXII Olympiad, it would not have been surprising for Diaz, who lifted an Olympic record 127 kilograms on her third attempt in the clean & jerk category to edge Chinese world record holder Qiuyun Liao by one kilogram for the 55kg championship, to announce her retirement.

Instead, Diaz, during a morning media zoom interview arranged by Philippine Olympic Committee president Bambol Tolentino, spoke of her intentions to take part in the pandemic-postponed Hanoi Southeast Asian Games next year, and the 2022 World Weightlifting Championships in Chonqing, China in October.

She even obliged questions regarding a possible fifth Olympic appearance – in Paris in 2024.

“Takot ako sa Paris (I’m scared of Paris),” she said. “Titignan ko. Alam ko mahirap ang qualifying. Kung nandon pa lakas ko, puwedeng magtuloy-tuloy (I’ll see. I know qualifying is difficult. If my strength is still there, I will continue) .”

But retirement, after her historic conquest, is farthest from her mind.