PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, Palawan — After 22 years since competing in her first Batang Pinoy here, Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz now watches over the new generation of weightlifters.

Diaz, who was at the Ramon V. Mitra Sr. Sports Complex on Monday, was happy to see a lot of weightlifters compared to when she competed back in 2002.

She and her coach and husband Julius Naranjo are currently overseeing Rizal’s performance in this year’s Batang Pinoy.

“My first competition was the Batang Pinoy in 2002. There were only a few people who joined back then and I’m happy to see it grow,” Diaz said.

“There’s a lot of athletes here and I hope to compete more here.”

Diaz’s stint in the Batang Pinoy opened up a lot of opportunities for her.

Six years after her Batang Pinoy stint, the Zamboanga City native went on to represent the country in the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a wildcard entry.

Diaz’s perseverance would later bear fruit in 2016 when she clinched a silver in the women’s 53-kilogram event of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games and ended the country’s 20-year medal drought.

Five years from Rio, the 33-year-old weightlifter did the impossible and won the country’s first gold medal in the Olympics after winning the women’s 55-kg event in the Tokyo Games in 2021.

Now, Diaz is giving back and is doing everything in her power for her lifters to be at their best.

“It’s hard to sustain it but me and my husband would usually ask: ‘Why do we do this?’ It’s for the kids to reach their full potential,” Diaz said.

“I’m happy to see these kids love the sport and their friendship within the team,” said Diaz, who is here to guide niece Reynadine Jimenez, winner of the gold in the girls 40-kg class.

To help other local government units improve, Naranjo said they would conduct weightlifting seminars. To help them be better prepared for competitions.

“We offer seminars to help educate LGUs about weightlifting. We don’t want them sending a team to Batang Pinoy and not knowing what to do,” Naranjo said.

“It’s a good opportunity for us to do what we have been doing for a while now, which was doing seminars with different clubs and LGUs. We just need to see if they are interested and we will do seminars for them.”