Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem claims gold in Paris with new Olympics record

Arshad Nadeem won gold in the men’s Olympic javelin on Thursday, defeating defending champion Neeraj Chopra of India to win Pakistan’s first Olympic medal in athletics.

Nadeem raised his arms in celebration after breaking the Olympic record with an astounding 92.97 meters on his second throw, which moved him to sixth on the all-time list. He knelt down and kissed the ground when Chopra’s last-ditch effort failed to seal his victory. The Pakistani finished fifth in Tokyo but improved by winning silver at last year’s world championships.

Chopra, by far the strongest qualifier and favorite to retain his title, was struggling. His silver medal throw of 89.45 was his only good effort as he fouled his other five attempts.
“I am not very happy with my performance today and my technique and track was not very good,” said Chopra, who is battling a back injury. Grenada’s Anderson Peters won bronze with 88.54m, a moment of redemption for the two-time world champion who failed to qualify for the final at the Tokyo Games three years ago. Peters threw the javelin 88.54m on his fourth attempt, pushing Tokyo silver medalist Jakub Widlich of the Czech Republic into fourth place.

Nadeem, who compared his Olympic encounter with Neeraj Chopra to the two countries’ cricket rivalry, has previously said that it is difficult to be a non-cricketer in Pakistan because of the lack of resources and facilities for the sport.

He broke the Olympic record in the javelin at the Paris Olympics. He brought home Pakistan’s first individual winner Arshad Nadeem gold medal. Defeated the defending champion Indian opponent. But Arshad Nadeem has long trained with stick and rope.

The village of the 1.90-metre-tall colossus, a 27-year-old father of two, erupted with joy when his victory was announced at midnight in Pakistan.

“He achieved the impossible and made history, the whole world is watching my brother. He brought home the first medal in 32 years, gold (…) while we have nothing,” white and green. His elder Muhammad Azim expressed his happiness while wearing the clothes of Pakistan Jersey.

Nearby, in Punjab, bordering India, in Mian Chanu, people dance and distribute cakes and sweets.

Arshad Nadeem is the son of Mian Chanu. He came from a small village and flew the Pakistani flag at the international level,” Rashid Ahmed, 69, the coach who watched him in 2011, proudly told AFP.

Nothing predestined Arshad Nadeem to world fame or javelin throwing.

Arshad Nadeem Life Outside Cricket?

Like the majority of Pakistanis, there was only one sport that made him dream: cricket.

Increasingly visible in his region in the build-up to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, he told AFP he might even have “been in the national team”.

But on the advice of one of his brothers, he switched to athletics, which takes up less time than cricket matches that can last for days.

Because his family of seven brothers and sisters soon made him a priority. In a country where 40% of the population lives below the poverty line, the first goal is to meet the needs of all. So they were all quickly put to work by their father, a mason now retired.

Arshad Nadeem was married and had two children. And in his spare time, he tried everything: “shot put, javelin, discus, hammer, long jump, high jump and triple jump, even 100 meters, 200 meters and relay,” he said in 2021.

The turning point came in 2015 when he was hired by the Pakistan Water and Power Authority, a government authority with a budget to support sports talent.

With the office, he discovered diet — “a big problem,” he told AFP –, extreme training, including several knee and elbow injuries, and traveling to train.

On Thursday evening at the Stade de France near Paris, their sacrifices paid off. Crowned the javelin throw champion, he gave Pakistan its first medal in the history of Olympic athletics.

With a throw of 92.97m in his second attempt, Nadeem broke the Olympic record by more than two metres.

A Stick and a Rope

He defeated India’s Neeraj Chopra, who won the title in Tokyo in 2021. In recent years, the two friends – who hail from countries with historical enmity – have regularly found themselves on the podium. But in general Chopra, who according to the local press was one of the highest paid athletes in Indian athletics, was at the top and Arshad Nadeem was behind.

He will soon return to Pakistan with his first Olympic medal since 1992. 11th in the history of the country born after partition with India in 1947. And fourth in gold.

And all this without any infrastructure, Pervez Ahmed Dogar, a former sports official in Punjab, told AFP.

“The players had to work with wooden sticks wrapped in javelin cords,” he recalls, often in 45-degree temperatures.

“When we saw that Arshad was moving like a rocket, we managed to bring him a real javelin that we had brought from Sialkot,” 400 km away.

But even today Pakistan does not have any professional knowledge of athletics.