Asiad gold winners come home

FILE: GOLDEN GIRLS. Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, golfers Yuka Saso, Loisa Kaye Go, and Bianca Pagdanganan proudly show the gold medals they won at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta-Palembang upon arrival at the Ninoy Aquino Internationa Airport in Pasay City on Tuesday evening (August 28, 2018). (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)

MANILA — The four biggest winners so far in the ongoing Asian Games are now back home.

Hidilyn Diaz, Yuka Saso, Kaye Go, and Bianca Pagdanganan, who gave the Philippines all its three gold medals in the quadrennial meet as of Tuesday night, stepped foot on Philippine soil again.

The four ladies arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2 via Philippine Airlines Flight PR 540 from Jakarta. The plane made its landing at around 7 p.m. Tuesday night.

The parents of Saso, Go, Pagdanganan, and Diaz came to welcome back their respective daughters, even as the latter’s comrades at the Philippine Air Force gave her a hero’s welcome just outside the airport.

Diaz was the first to strike gold for the Philippines when she won the under-53 kilogram women’s weightlifting event. She bared to reporters that she may play at the under-55 kilogram category in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Saso and Pagdanganan then went 1-3 in the women’s individual golf event, while Go joined them in giving the Philippines the women’s team golf gold.

Joining the four in arriving were the first wave of athletes and officials, whose stints in the Asiad are already done.