If it wasn't for the COVID-19 pandemic, another Olympic medal could have already been added to the collection of weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz right now.
Diaz went home with the silver medal in the women's 53-kg category during the 2016 Rio Olympics. However, her return trip to the quadrennial event was delayed for another year.
This led to additional expenses to fund her prolonged training and the MVP Sports Foundation (MVPSF) quickly came to the rescue as it realigned its 2020 financial support in the amount of P1.5M for Diaz to best suit her current needs.
MVPSF has been in constant communication with Diaz to keep track on how she is doing and find out where it can step in financially to support the Tokyo 2020 bound athlete.
Diaz remains in Malaysia up to now as the country put itself on lockdown last March 17.
"It was due to these unforeseen circumstances that we at MVPSF decided that it was best to realign our support to cover Hidilyn's living expenses such as food and rent as she continues to remain focused towards her goal of winning the first Olympic gold medal for our country in her fourth time to qualify for the Olympics," said MVPSF President Al S. Panlilio.
"Our Chairman Manny V. Pangilinan deeply cares about all of the athletes under the MVPSF banner and we're doing our best to help take care of their needs during this difficult time. We don't want Hidilyn to worry about her day-to-day needs so she can focus on training and bringing home that elusive Olympic gold medal."
Diaz was in Malaysia training for her final Olympic Qualifying event, the 2020 Asian Weightlifting Championships when the COVID-19 pandemic came into the forefront. The cancelled competition, which had gold level qualification status, was scheduled for April 16 to 25, 2020 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
To keep herself competition-ready, she recently joined the Eleiko Email International Lifters Tournament held last July 24-25 where she struck gold in the 59kg category with a total of 216kg (95kg Snatch and 121kg Clean and Jerk). The event was mounted by the Oceania Weightlifting Federation with the assistance of weightlifting equipment brand Eleiko.
"Thank you MVPSF sa lahat ng tulong na binigay niyo sakin at sa Team HD during this pandemic," said Diaz. "Malaking bagay para sakin na nandiyan parin si MVP tumutulong sa journey ko towards Tokyo2020+1. I can't survive this journey without God, TeamHD, the help of MVPSF, and the support of Filipinos."
The 29-year-old Diaz is one of the country's top medal prospects in the upcoming Olympics alongside his fellow MVPSF supported athletes in gymnast Carlos Yulo, boxers Eumir Marcial and Irish Magno, and skateboarder Margielyn Didal.