Paris Olympics Gold medalist Arshad Nadeem: How villagers in Pakistan collected money to send javelin player to Olympics

Arshad Nadeem created the record for Pakistan by winning the first Olympic individual gold medal in athletics at the Olympics with a throw of 92.97. This was actually the first time in the last three decades that Pakistan had clinched a medal in the Olympics; the last one was in 1992. 

This is the story of Nadeem’s success story, a man who hails from the village Mian Channu in Punjab and the support from his community. His father, Muhammad Ashraf, said that people of the village combined their money to support him for training and to travel to the competitions, which also shows the community’s support to him. 

However, it was not easy for Nadeem and his team as they suffered injuries, and had no adequate training grounds besides this determination was evident. He earlier placed fifth in Tokyo 2020 Olympics and has a gold medal from the Commonwealth Games held in 2022. He even appealed for a new javelin for training this year and this cause of his was supported by Neeraj Chopra on Social media, this highlights the sportsmanship between them.

 The win over the defending champion, Neeraj Chopra of India, has brought a new zeal in athletics in Pakistan, where cricket has been the most popular sport.