{"id":87081,"date":"2021-06-18T10:03:35","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T10:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=87081"},"modified":"2021-06-18T10:57:27","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T10:57:27","slug":"pakistan-javelin-thrower-sharpens-hopes-of-rare-olympic-medal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=87081","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan javelin-thrower sharpens hopes of rare Olympic medal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lahore:\u00a0Arshad Nadeem once dreamed of becoming a star cricketer, but after switching to athletics he has the opportunity to grab Pakistan’s first individual Olympic medal in more than 30 years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Right now there is a chance for me,” Nadeem told AFP as he prepared for next month’s Covid-delayed Tokyo Games.<\/p>\n

“If I throw my best then, God willing, I will win a medal.”<\/p>\n

Since its first Olympics in London in 1948, Pakistan have won three gold, three silver and two bronze medals in field hockey.<\/p>\n

Read:\u00a0Javelin Throw World Rankings: Arshad Nadeem claims third spot<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

The bronzes won by wrestler Mohammad Bashir in Rome in 1960 and boxer Hussain Shah in Seoul in 1988 are Pakistan’s only individual Olympic medals.<\/p>\n

But ahead of next month’s games, Nadeem has the world’s sixth-best javelin throw of the year — a personal best 86.38 metres achieved in April in Iran, where he was forced to travel in order to seek top-flight competition.<\/p>\n

The strapping 24-year-old, who ditched\u00a0cricket\u00a0for athletics as a teenager, will face tougher opponents in Tokyo, but he said he won’t be fazed.<\/p>\n

“I don’t look at any of the other javelin throwers… I don’t focus on them,” he said after a training session in Lahore.<\/p>\n

“I focus on myself and how I throw and I try my best — and that is how God honours me.”<\/p>\n

Family first\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Nadeem already has a taste for gold, having stood atop the podium at last year’s South Asian Games in Nepal.<\/p>\n

He took bronze at the 2018 Commonwealth Games behind gold-winner Neeraj Chopra of India, the farmer’s son who has thrown the third-longest distance this year.<\/p>\n

It hasn’t been an easy path for the 1.87 metre-tall (six feet two inches) Nadeem, who comes from a village in a wheat and cotton-producing area of Punjab.<\/p>\n

With sons and daughters put to work early, he had little time for his first love,\u00a0cricket, and facilities and proper training were scarce.<\/p>\n

Despite the difficulties, Nadeem shone as an all-rounder. “I was good,” he said.<\/p>\n

“There was a chance for me to be part of the national team, but conditions were such that I couldn’t do it.”<\/p>\n

On the advice of a brother, Nadeem turned to athletics — which took less time than days-long\u00a0cricket\u00a0matches — trying his hand at a variety of events.<\/p>\n

“There was shot put, javelin, discus, hammer, long jump, high jump and triple jump,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I even ran in the 100 metres, 200 metres and relay — and thankfully I won about seven to nine events at divisional level.”<\/p>\n

Nadeem’s big break came in 2015 when he was taken on by Pakistan’s water and power board, a government authority with a modest budget for nurturing sports talent.<\/p>\n

There he was taken under the wing of coach Fayaz Hussain Bukhari.<\/p>\n

“He threw well so we gave him a job,” said Bukhari, who has been Nadeem’s coach ever since.<\/p>\n

‘Good learner’\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Still, sacrifices had to be made in order to produce a world-class athlete — not least in getting the right diet.<\/p>\n

“Yes, food is a big problem… But that is something that needs to be dealt with as part of life,” he said.<\/p>\n

Bukhari said getting Nadeem in the right condition for the Games had been difficult during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

“Training is the real challenge. He sat at home for a year because of corona,” said the coach.<\/p>\n

“All the gyms and stadiums were closed. I had to work him hard to bring him to a point where he could compete and win again.”<\/p>\n

Bukhari, who is paid just 15,000 rupees a month (around $100) to look after his charge, said Nadeem was a great student.<\/p>\n

“He trains well and is a good learner,” he said, adding: “We are going to do our best, and the rest is in God’s hands.”<\/p>\n

Whatever the result in Tokyo, Nadeem knows he can count on the support from his family and neighbours.<\/p>\n

“We have a small village which has become famous not just in all of Pakistan but the entire world because of Arshad Nadeem,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They are very happy.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lahore:\u00a0Arshad Nadeem once dreamed of becoming a star cricketer, but after switching to athletics he has the opportunity to grab Pakistan’s first individual Olympic medal […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87081"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87083,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87081\/revisions\/87083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}