ROMY P. MARIÑASMargielyn Didal, 19, is one of TIME’s 25 Most Influential Teens of 2018.Margie, as she is popularly called, is a Filipino skateboarder from Cebu in central Philippines who won the gold medal in women’s skateboarding at the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia.In an online article, Suyin Haynes, writing about this year’s TIME’s choices, quoted the Pinay teenager as saying, “It’s going to be the big goal in my life to get that gold medal.”That medal that the perky Cebuana was referring to is the one to be given to the eventual winner of the skateboarding competition in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.The fast-rising sport has been calendared for the first time as an official Olympic event.Actually getting her act reach the Japanese capital, of course, is easier said than done because Margie still has to qualify to be able to join the planet’s top female skateboarders in the showdown of all showdowns.She can do so by accumulating ranking points between now and the kickoff of the greatest sports show on earth.But the young woman from an ordinary Filipino family (mother, street-food vendor; father, carpenter) seemed determined to make it to next year’s Olympiad, telling Haynes, “I want to build a new generation of skaters for the future.”We can only wish Margie the best of luck and, who knows, she might just be the first Filipino, man or woman, to give the Philippines its first Olympic gold medal in any sport, individual or team, in the quadrennial event after almost 100 years of participation.For the list, TIME “consider[ed] accolades across numerous fields, global impact through social media and overall ability to drive news.”“In the past,” it said, it “recognized everyone from singer Lorde to Olympic champion [gymnast] Simone Biles to political activist Joshua Wong.”Margielyn Didal is in the good company of fellow teenagers who made TIME’s 2018 list, among them Marley Dias, 13 (the youngest); Millie Bobby Brown, 14; seven-member K-pop group NCT Dream, 16-19; Ahed Tamimi, 17, who turned 17 in an Israeli prison; the Parkland students, 18-19, who survived a mass shooting that killed 17 fellow students in Florida; snowboarding superstar Chloe Kim who bagged an Olympic gold medal in the halfpipe in Pyeongchang, South Kortea, also this year; and Kylian Mbappé, 19, who helped give France the 2018 World Cup trophy, its first in 20 years.The Pinay skateboarding sensation, according to Haynes, “credits her family and her girlfriend with keeping her motivated to skate.”Bongga ka ‘day!
