With less than 3 months to go before her fourth straight Olympic stint, Hidilyn Diaz is ready to dive into greater challenges as she ramps up her Tokyo 2020 campaign.

Diaz, who qualified for the Tokyo Olympics by participating in the 2021 Asian Weightlifting Championships, emphasized that she will give it her all in her bid for a historic gold. (READ: Hidilyn Diaz grateful for learnings from Asian weightlifting tilt)

“Hungry ako maka-perform nang maayos kasi ‘yung last competition ko, hindi masyadong maganda performance ko, marami akong nakitang mali,” said Diaz on Friday, April 30 during the Summit Natural Drinking Water virtual press conference.

“So now it’s time for me to prepare physically, emotionally, ibubuhos ko na lahat and magbibigay ako ng more time for mental preparation.”

(I’m hungry to perform well because I didn’t do so well in my last competition, I saw lots of mistakes and it’s now time for me to prepare physically, emotionally, I will pour out everything and give more time for mental preparation.)

The 2016 Rio Olympics silver medalist participated in her first tournament after 15 months, to complete all 6 required Olympic qualifiers.

But she turned up without a medal, placing 4th overall in the women’s 55kg event.

The country’s weightlifting star, though, bared she has already made adjustments in her training in Malaysia.

“‘Yung nutrition tuloy-tuloy pa rin kasi naging maganda ang timing ng weight ko, kailangan lang is the intensity ng training, kailangan dagdagan pa ng isang session – from 6 to 8 sessions, naging 7 to 10 sessions,” said Diaz.

(Nutrition will stay the same because the timing of the weight during the competition was good, so what’s needed is to turn up the intensity of the training. I need to add one more session – from 6 to 8 sessions to 7 to 10 sessions.)

Diaz, who currently ranks No. 5 in the world, had also qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics by virtue of ranking.

As the top 4 places in the world are occupied by China, she snagged the No. 2 spot since only one weightlifter per event can represent a country. – Rappler.com