Hidilyn Diaz

Hidilyn Diaz grew up in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines, one of six children of a tricycle driver. She started lifting at 11 with a barbell made from a pipe and concrete weights, copying a cousin, and was often teased for being a girl doing a man's sport. She competed at the Beijing Olympics at 17 as a wildcard, and in London in 2012 she failed to register a total. She thought seriously about quitting.

She stayed, joined the Philippine Air Force, and in Rio in 2016 won silver, the country's first Olympic medal for 20 years and its first ever by a woman. Then things turned strange. In 2019 her name appeared on a list, published by the president's office, of people supposedly plotting to bring down the government. She denied it, was frightened, and said sponsors and supporters began to keep their distance.

In early 2020 she went to Malaysia for a training camp, and the pandemic shut the borders behind her. She spent more than a year in a rented flat, lifting bamboo poles hung with water bottles and asking for money online to pay for food and her coaches.

In Tokyo in 2021 she lifted an Olympic record in the clean and jerk to win the 55 kilogram class, the first gold medal for the Philippines in nearly a century of trying. She did not qualify for Paris, and said she was at peace with that.