Hidilyn Diaz leaving for Malaysia to gear up for IWF World Championships

Hidilyn Diaz is all set to leave for Malacca, Malaysia as she puts into high gear her preparations for the 2021 International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championship set to unfurl on December 7 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Diaz will be accompanied by her coach Julius Naranjo as they leave the country on Saturday, October 16, to return to the same private and isolated home and facility where she conducted her 2020 Tokyo Olympics buildup.

Winning the world title would be monumental for Diaz as it remains to be the only major accolade missing in her colorful collection.

The Zamboanga pride already has an Olympic gold medal when she ruled the women's 55-kg weightlifting event of the recent Summer Games, making herself the first Filipino athlete to achieve such a feat.

Diaz had also taken home a silver during the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she tallied a total score of 200 behind gold medalist Hsu Shu-ching of Chinese Taipei.

Diaz, 30, also has Asian Games and Southeast Asian (SEA) Games gold medals under her belt after emerging victorious in the 2018 and 2019 editions, respectively.

Diaz regularly joined the World Championships but could only come away with a bronze medal after placing third in 2015, 2017, and 2019.

—JMB, GMA News