Arshad Nadeem’s home village erupted into rapturous celebrations after he clinched Pakistan’s first Olympic medal in athletics, winning gold in the men’s javelin and knocking defending champion Neeraj Chopra of arch-rival India into second place.
Nadeem’s triumph on Thursday in Paris is all the more impressive for a man born and raised in a mud brick house in an impoverished corner of rural Pakistan and forced as a young man to train in local wheat fields with homemade javelins.
The news of his victory thrilled his compatriots, drawing congratulatory messages from the nation’s leaders and prompting jubilant dancing and fireworks in his normally sleepy home village of Mian Channu.
“We have not been able to sleep since last night because relatives, the media, friends, fans and state functionaries are constantly visiting us to congratulate the family,” his oldest brother Shahid Nadeem told Reuters on Friday.
“People from surrounding villages came to watch the match here,” he said. “We had arranged a big screen. They expressed their joy by chanting, dancing and with fireworks.”
Pakistan mostly channels its limited funding for sports into team games such as cricket and hockey.
Nadeem, who compared his Olympic clash with Chopra to the two nations’ legendary rivalry in cricket, has previously said it is challenging being a non-cricket athlete in Pakistan, where resources and facilities for his sport are scarce.
But now his record-breaking 92.97 metre javelin throw in Paris has earned Pakistan its first Olympic medal since the 1992 Barcelona Games and its first gold medal since the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
“This gold medal is a gift from me to the entire nation on the occasion of Independence Day (on Aug. 14),” Nadeem said in a post on social media platform X.
Nadeem, 27, married with two children, comes from a poor family of eight children in the central Pakistani region of Khanewal, where he first began to dream of Olympic greatness.
His district barely had reliable water and electricity supplies, let alone proper sports facilities for him to train.
“Initially, we improvised homemade javelins by using long eucalyptus branches with iron tips on their ends. The fields in our village served as our training ground,” brother Shahid said.
“We developed our own weight training apparatus by using iron rods, canisters of oil and concrete.”
The situation improved when Nadeem joined the local power utility Wapda, which had its own sports facilities.
Even so, Nadeem had still been training with substandard javelins just months before the Paris Olympics, until a last-minute appeal saw the Pakistani government step in to help, his mother Razia Parveen told Reuters.
“The government sponsored javelins and other facilities for him. He brought back three new international standard javelins from South Africa,” she said.
“I am very happy for Arshad and Pakistan… I offered prayers to thank God immediately after his victory,” she said from their home, which houses a gym built by Nadeem and his brothers and featuring gear such as iron rods and canisters filled with cement.
And she praised India’s silver medal winner.
“I also congratulate Chopra,” said Razia Parveen. “I congratulate his mother and his family. Victory and defeat are just by fate.”
Shahid Nadeem said all four brothers are sportsmen.
“My two younger brothers and me abandoned our passion and started jobs to support the family,” he added.
However, Nadeem’s decision to stick with his passion seems set to change the family’s fortunes.
Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz of Punjab province where Nadeem comes from announced a cash prize of 100 million rupees ($359,195) as a reward for what she said was his “hard work”.
Nadeem received a hero’s welcome when he returned to Pakistan.
“Arshad is living proof that there’s nothing you can’t accomplish when you dream big, train hard, and never give up,” the US embassy in Islamabad said on X.