Filipina weightlifter dreams of country's first Olympic gold

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

MANILA (AFP) — For as long as she can remember, Hidilyn Diaz has been carting five-gallon jugs of water to her home in a poor Philippines village. It was only a matter of time before she started lifting real weights.

Now, the stocky, bashful 17-year-old is one of 15 athletes from the Philippines heading to Beijing, and she is hoping her hard work and sacrifice will help her become her country's first-ever Olympic gold medallist.

Such a feat would not only be a sporting achievement -- it would earn her 15 million pesos (339,000 dollars), an unthinkable fortune in an impoverished country where a third of the population lives on a dollar a day or less.

"I will try my best," Diaz told AFP, explaining how her Olympic dreams have changed an otherwise ordinary...