TOKYO—If there's someone on Team Philippines who has trained the most at the Tokyo Olympics, she's no other than Margielyn Didal.

Didal, free and easy with her sport, never separates herself from her skateboard as she roams the 44-hectare Olympic Village where 11,000 athletes from all over the world are staying for close to three weeks.

"Margielyn skateboards around the village and because of that, she gets extra training outside of her competition venue," Chef de Mission Mariano "Nonong" Araneta told BusinessMirror on Thursday.

"But, of course, she observes protocols," Mariano said. "There are Covid-19 staff spread out the village who make sure everyone wears a mask and observes social distancing."

Didal is competing in women's street of skateboarding, one of four sports making their Olympic debut in Tokyo, the others being surfing, karate and sport climbing.

The event is set on Monday at the Ariake Urban Sports Park with the 22-year-old Cebuana, who won gold medals at the Jakarta 2018 Asian Games and Philippines 2019 Southeast Asian Games, expecting world-class challenges from skateboarders from the US, Brazil and Japan.

"The world's best are here and we expect the competition to be very tough," coach Daniel Bautista said, saying Didal didn't tinker much with her tricks but focused on polishing them and avoiding errors.

"She'll basically do the same tricks that she'd used in past competitions, but we trained focused on limiting mistakes," Bautista said.

Didal, ranked No. 17 by World Skate, will be pitted against world Nos. 1 and 2 Pamela Rosa and Rayssa Leal of Brazil, No. 3 Aori Nishimura of Japan, Leticia Bufoni also of Brazilian and Momiji Nishiya also of the host country. 

Read full article on BusinessMirror