Aiden Gimed, center, poses with his gold medal during the awards ceremony of the Philippine National Weightlifting Championship in Bacolod, in the central Philippines on Saturday.
Jaden Andrew, 2nd left, poses with the silver medal during the awards ceremony of the Philippine National Weightlifting Championship in Bacolod, in the central Philippines on Saturday.
THE NMI’s Aiden Gimed and Jaden Andrew won the gold and silver medals at the Philippine National Weightlifting Championship held in the central Philippine city of Bacolod on Friday and Saturday.
Gimed aimed for greatness and succeeded as he dominated the 73kg weight class of the youth division to claim the gold medal.
The 13-year-old recorded his best snatch of 70kg and followed up with a clean & jerk of 87kg.
Andrew, 11, likewise delivered, winning a silver medal in the 61kg weight class in the youth division with his best snatch of 69kg and clean & jerk of 80kg.
The two young weightlifters traveled with their coach, Pacific Mini Games gold medalist Angel San Nicolas of HD Weightlifting CNMI, a branch of the Hidilyn Diaz Weightlifting Academy.
Gimed and Andrew wanted to test their strength and see if all their hard work had paid off.
“Before the competition I was really excited because it’s a different place and I get to compete with different people,” said Gimed.
The toughest part for the young athlete was the snatch portion as he missed his first attempt and was worried that he would also miss his second or third attempt.
But his best performance was seen during the clean & jerk portion as he recorded a new personal best of 87kg along with a new personal best in total weight of 159kg.
“I was proud of my results because I achieved my goals…and I was happy that I got a medal because for the past few weeks I was dedicated to achieving a medal,” Gimed said.
According to Andrew, “Before competition day I was nervous and excited — nervous that I would fail my lifts in front of everyone but also excited to be competing in a different place and with different people.”
He said the snatch portion was tough. Although he did not record any new PB’s in his lifts, he did increase his total weight to 149kg from 143kg.
“I wasn’t too proud of my results because I didn’t get to break my PB lifts but I felt good that I was able to make my openers higher,” Andrew said.
Gimed and Andrew were not supposed to compete in the Philippine, San Nicolas said. “The plan was for them to just train, but coach Julius and I decided to see if we could get them to compete, and…they got approved.”
Julius Naranjo of Guam is the coach and husband of Philippine weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz who won a gold medal in the 2020 Summer Olympics.
With San Nicolas, Naranjo also provides guidance to the NMI’s young weightlifters.
“I believe…that a change of environment is essential to an athlete’s long-term athletic development,” Naranjo said. “It’s the same feeling I got when I started to travel. When I went abroad and stepped outside my comfort zone, it opened my eyes and gave me a sense of motivation that can’t be taught.”
Naranjo added, “You also learn a lot about the world around you when you travel, so just having these athletes experience a world that they aren’t comfortable in would hopefully give them a humbling and eye-opening experience.”
Naranjo said “this is the time to teach them and mold them to experience the elite training methodology and to give them an understanding of what it takes to be elite. So far, they’ve ticked all the boxes in terms of that.”
