He was an underdog and took the Olympic title on Thursday by breaking the Games record for the javelin throw: Arshad Nadeem gave to Pakistan a historic gold medal, and he did it despite his lack of resources. The country is not one of those that pays the most for a medal, but the prizes for its new hero will come from businessmen who have already promised him juicy gifts.
For a long time, his way of training was with a stick and a rope, something that gives even more merit to the feat of this 1.90-metre, 27-year-old colossus, father of two children, who brought euphoria to his country.
“He has achieved the impossible and made history. Everyone was watching my brother. He has brought us our first medal in 32 years. And a gold one (…) when we have nothing,” said his older brother, Muhammad Azeem, dressed in a shirt with the national colours, white and green.
Next to him, in Mian Channu, in Punjab, on the border with India, the party was in full swing. There was dancing, singing, and cakes were being handed out.
“Arshad Nadeem is from Mian Channu. He came here from a small village and has taken Pakistan’s colours to the top internationally,” Rasheed Ahmed (69), the coach who spotted his sporting qualities in 2011, proudly told AFP.
But no one could have predicted at the beginning that Arshad would be able to achieve Olympic glory, much less in the javelin throw.
Like the vast majority of Pakistanis, Arshad could only dream of one sport: cricket.
While preparing for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Nadeem admitted to AFP that he might have made it to the national team in that sport, the most important for the country.
But life had a different fate in store for him. Following the advice of one of his brothers, he decided to take up athletics, a more immediate sport than cricket, whose matches can last several days.
Time management was important. His family of seven brothers and sisters needed him.
In a country where 40% of the population lives below the poverty line, the number one goal is to meet everyone’s needs, so he had to work from a very early age at the request of his father, a now retired bricklayer.
Arshad Nadeem married and had two children. In his spare time, he continued to dream of athletics and practiced shot put, javelin, discus and hammer throws, as well as long jump, high jump, triple jump and 100 metres, he said in 2021.
His life changed in 2015 when he was hired by the Pakistan Water and Electricity Board, a government authority with a budget to support sports talent.
There he also discovered that sport involves sacrifices: intensive training, diet, several injuries to his knees and elbows, and travel for training sessions.
On Thursday at the Stade de France, her sacrifices paid off and gave Pakistan its historic first Olympic medal in athletics.
With a throw of 92.97 metres on his second attempt, Nadeem smashed the Olympic record by more than two metres.
He beat Indian Neeraj Chopra, champion in Tokyo in 2021. In recent years they have become friends despite coming from two countries that have a historical rivalry.
They have shared podiums in different competitions, but Chopra, a star in his country, has so far been the dominant force and Nadeem has remained in the shadows.
She will now return to Pakistan as a protagonist, with the country’s first Olympic medal since 1992. It will also be the eleventh in the history of this country, which was founded in 1947 after the partition with India. And the fourth gold.
All this without Nadeem having adequate infrastructure for his sport, Parvaiz Ahmed, a former Punjab sports official, told AFP.
“The athletes had to make do with wooden sticks with a rope wound around them like a javelin,” he recalls, often exercising in temperatures close to 45 degrees Celsius.
“When I saw that Arshad was progressing so much, we got him a real javelin, which we had brought from Sialkot. [una ciudad a 400 kilómetros]”, he points out.
In any case, Pakistan does not have any professional athletics infrastructure, as the priority remains cricket or field hockey fields.
Last March, Arshad Nadeem said that he had been training with his only javelin for seven years. It was only with the Paris Games approaching that he was able to get another one.
But since Thursday, everything has certainly changed for him: on social media, politicians and businessmen in the country are already announcing rewards and gifts in recognition of his success in Paris.
Source: Ambito
I am Pierce Boyd, a driven and ambitious professional working in the news industry. I have been writing for 24 Hours Worlds for over five years, specializing in sports section coverage. During my tenure at the publication, I have built an impressive portfolio of articles that has earned me a reputation as an experienced journalist and content creator.
