Hidilyn Diaz gets emotional, expresses gratitude during surprise video call with Malaysian foster dad

Hidilyn Diaz got emotional during a surprise video call with the person who helped her when she was stuck in Malaysia while training for the Olympics.

During Hidilyn's interview with "Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho," she was surprised with a call from Janius Abdullah, the deputy president of the Malaysian Weightlifting Federation who gave her and her team a place to stay and train in for almost 10 months.

Hidilyn was overflowing with gratitude for the man who stood as her foster father in the country. "I just want to say thank you, Sir, Auntie, for being there," she told him.

"You just offered your place and we just grabbed it. You brought all the equipment and drove to Malacca. It really meant a lot to me," she added.

Janius also expressed his pride for Hidilyn and praised the historic win for the Philippines.

"We treat Hidilyn like our own daughter. This Olympics is our daughter's. We feel like we won the lottery! We're very proud of her. Congratulations also to the Philippines! We are family.”

Before Hidilyn Diaz became the first ever Filipino to bring home an Olympic gold medal, she went through several obstacles, including improvising her training by using bamboo sticks.

Her training trip to Malaysia was supposed to last only 55 days, but she had to stay longer due to the country's lockdown.

Hidilyn and her team didn't have a place to stay, and they were forced to improvise for her training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

"Wala kaming place to stay. Wala kaming mapagti-trainingan. Kumuha kami ng bamboo stick. Nag-improvise na lang kami. Lagyan ng bottle of water 'yung bag, pwede nang mag-squat, basta makapag-training. Tapos tumatakbo kami sa parking lot," she said.

[We didn't have a place to stay in. We didn't have a place to train in. We just got bamboo sticks. We improvised. We put bottled water in bags for squats just so we can train. And we'd run in the parking lot.]

Fortunately, Janius answered Hidilyn’s call for help and offered her and her team a place to train and stay in Malacca.

Hidilyn shared that she was grateful for all the help and support they received from Janius' family.

On July 26, Hidilyn made history as the first Filipino to win a gold medal at the Olympics after ruling the women's 55-kg weightlifting event in Tokyo.

Prior to her glorious win, Hidilyn was also a silver medalist at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and a gold medalist at the 2018 Asian Games and 2019 Southeast Asian Games. Her historic achievement for the Philippines has been celebrated all over the world. – Kaela Malig/RC, GMA News