Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz won the Philippines' first gold medal of the 2018 Asian Games and "proud Indonesian" Eko Yuli Irawan triumphed for the hosts on a pulsating day of action Tuesday. Diaz, the silver medallist from the Rio Olympics, pipped Turkmenistan's Kristina Shermetova by just one kilogramme to win the women's 53kg class.
"It was pressure for me for how many months," Diaz told AFP. "At the Olympics no one expected me to win but at Asian Games everyone expected me to win a medal, a gold medal. "For months I couldn't sleep, my training got ruined but with positive people surrounding me I got through it. They inspired and motivated me." Earlier Irawan, also a silver medallist in Rio, dominated the men's 62kg competition to take Indonesia's first weightlifting gold of the Games in front of President Joko Widodo.
Veteran Irawan, 29, has won multiple major medals in a senior weightlifting career stretching back to his bronze at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, but had never before set foot on the top step of the podium. "I'm a proud Indonesian and pleased for the country to win gold," Irawan told AFP after receiving his medal from president Widodo. "I feel like everything I have fought for I have now finally achieved."
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