Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz wins first ever Olympic gold for Philippines

Monday proved to be a historic day for the Philippines as weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz became the first athlete from her country to win an Olympic gold medal.

The Rio 2016 silver medallist, 30, reached the top of the podium in the women's 55-kilogram class at the Tokyo International Forum, defeating world record holder Liao Qiuyun of China.

Philippines’ first-ever Olympic gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz wins $660,000 and a house

"It's unbelievable, it's a dream come true," Diaz told AFP. "I want to say to the young generation in the Philippines, 'You can have this dream of gold too.'

"This is how I started and finally I was able to do it."

Liao set a target of 223kg, which was four short of her own world record. Diaz faced a final clean and jerk of 127kg to win - 5kg more than she had ever achieved.

With one final push, she clinched the gold and ended her country's gold drought. In her fourth Olympics, the 30-year-old lifted a combined weight of 224kg, an Olympic record.

Liao took silver, with Kazakhstan's Zulfiya Chinshanlo taking bronze.

Diaz was already a star back home, her silver five years ago ending a 20-year medal wait for the Philippines.

She spent the last year and a half training in exile in Malaysia because of Covid restrictions.

"I'm looking forward to going back home to the Philippines to be with my family because I really miss them," she said. "I'm looking forward now to [enjoying] my life after so many sacrifices."

Diaz's medal was one of only 11 the Philippines has won since the country first took part in the Olympics in 1924.

The country's presidential representative, Harry Roque, said that Diaz has brought pride and glory to the Philippines.

"Congratulations, Hidilyn. The entire Filipino nation is proud of you," he said.

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

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Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

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Sole survivors

Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.