Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem said his years of hard paid off after winning the Olympic men’s javelin title in Paris on Thursday, his country’s first individual gold at a Summer Games.
Nadeem threw an Olympic record of 92.97 metres for victory, India’s defending champion Neeraj Chopra taking silver with 89.45. Grenada’s Anderson Peters claimed bronze with 88.54m.
“When I threw the javelin, I got the feel of it leaving my hand and sensed it could be an Olympic record,” said the 27-year-old Nadeem.
Nadeem, the 2022 Commonwealth champion who was fifth at the Tokyo Olympics and a silver medallist at last year’s Budapest world championships, said the result was “very important for Pakistan because I have worked very hard over the years for this”.
“My training and hard work have paid off.”
The rivalry with Chopra “is there, no doubt”, he added.
“Like cricket, the javelin rivalry was present! People back home in Pakistan and India were eager to see us compete together.”
Nadeem said he had big ambitions for throwing even further.
“I was expecting to go even further and I am hoping to go even further,” he said after his new Olympic record beat his previous best by more than two metres.
“I will try harder to even extend my personal best to over 95 metres.”
Before Arshad’s remarkable victory, Pakistan had never won an individual gold medal at the Olympics.
All of Pakistan’s previous three gold medals came in field hockey, with their team winning gold in 1960, 1968 and 1984.
Prior to Thursday, only two Pakistan athletes had won individual medals of any colour – with a wrestling bronze in 1960 and a boxing bronze in 1988.
Since the 1992 Barcelona Games, Pakistan has not won a medal of any kind.
Chopra was satisfied with his best throw, but not much else.
“I’m not that happy with my performance today and also my technique and runway was not that good,” he said.
“Only one throw, the rest I fouled. That second throw I believed in myself to think I can also throw that far. But in javelin, if your run-up is not so good, you can’t go very far.”
Chopra admitted to not doing much throwing in training because of a groin injury.
“The last two, three years were not so good. I’m always injured. I really tried hard, but I have to do some more work on my injury and technique.
“But I will work hard in the future. Today’s competition was really great. Arshad threw really well. Congratulations to him and his country.”