INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines ? Even when the discouragement came early, the stubborn little lifter refused to give up.

Even when four-year-old Patricia Llena was told by her father that lifting weights wasn?t for girls, she, well, carried on.

?She wanted to train so she kept on disturbing me while I was training,? said Leonardo Llena, who was also into the sport.

?I made it difficult for her, made the weights heavier, thinking that she might give up on that first day.?

Patricia didn?t.

?She was back at training the next day,? Leonardo said.

Somewhere along the way, Leonardo became convinced that the eldest of his four children would make her mark in the sport. He took it upon himself to coach Patricia.

And 11 years later, father and daughter shared their winning moment when Patricia made a rousing debut in the World Sub Junior Powerlifting Championship in Sao Paolo, Brazil last September.

Patricia bagged three golds and a bronze in the premiere 18-under tournament of the sport dwarfed in popularity by weightlifting. While weightlifting has two events ? snatch and clean and jerk ? powerlifting has three ? squat, bench press and deadlift.

Weighing just 60 kilograms, Llena showed tremendous strength in winning the squat (170 kg) and deadlift (170kg). She claimed the bronze in bench press (80 kg.) and won one more gold by tallying the best combined weight in three events.

Patricia relegated the likes of former champions Kendra Miller of the Unites States and Yana Talybora of Russia to silver and bronze medal finishes, respectively.

?They were both crying because it was their last year in the competition,? Philippine Powerlifting Association national coach and athlete Richie Rosales said.

?I?m very happy because I really didn?t expect to win,? said Patricia, who hails from San Antonio, Nueva Ecija and is a consistent honor student at the Montessori School there, where she is a fourth-year student.

Next up for Patricia, who looks up to Beijing Olympian Hidilyn Diaz, is the weightlifting competition in the inaugural Youth Olympics in Singapore next year. She?s hoping a brilliant performance in Singapore would land her a slot in the 2012 London Olympics.

?My dream is to become the country?s first Olympic champion in weightlifting,? Patricia said.