Page 137 - May 2018 - December 2018 Issue

HIDILYN DIAZ. Weightlifting is ideally a sport
for men, but it was proven by Hidilyn Diaz
that it can also be sport for a woman. She is
the first Filipina who have ever won a medal
for weightlifting in Olympics. With her win, it
also ended the 20-year drought of the
Philippines for an Olympics medal last 2016 in
Brazil. Hidilyn also participated in the 2018
Asian Games in Indonesia wherein she won
the first gold medal for the country.

ERNIE GAWILAN. Ernie was born with under
baskdeveloped extremities resulting to him
lacking both legs and an undeveloped left
limb due to attempted abortion and poor
pre-natal health. In 2008, he joined the
Philippine Olympic Festival, his first ever
swimming competition. He bagged the
second place which opened his way to
international swimming competitions. At the
2015 ASEAN Para Games in Singapore, Ernie
satisfied the Olympic qualifying time of
4:48.29 after he won a gold medal at the
men’s 400-meter freestyle S8 event with the
time of 4:48.49. The feat qualified him for the
2016 Summer Paralympics held in Rio de
Janeiro. The result was also an ASEAN Para
Games recording beating the former record
result of 5:03.09, as well as his previous
personal best of 4:53.67. The performance was
followed by another gold at the men’s 200
individual medley event. Before winning a
gold medal at the games, he clinched the
silver medal at the men’s 100m freestyle
event.

JORDAN CLARKSON. He is a
Filipino-American professional basketball
player for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the
National Basketball Association (NBA). He
acquired his dual citizenship with Philippines
and USA due to ancestral descent. His father
is an African-African while his mother is half
Filipino descent. Jordan is one example of
diversity in sports in which the sport does not
look into his cultural history and shows
respect for his love in playing basketball.

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