All eyes on Arshad Nadeem as his compatriots fall in Paris

Nukta correspondent

Pakistan's shooting journey in the 2024 Paris Olympics came to an end when the country's key shooter and a world bronze medalist Ghulam Mustafa Bashir crashed out at the first hurdle in the 25m rapid fire pistol competition.

The 37-year-old shooter, who bagged a bronze in the 2022 World Shooting Championship in Cairo, managed an aggregate score of 581 and finished fifteenth in the 29-men field when top six had to qualify for the finals on Sunday.

In the first phase, GM Bashir scored 292 points with 98 points in the first series of eight seconds while in the second series of six seconds, he scored 99 before scoring 95 in the series of four seconds.

In the second phase, GM Bashir didn’t manage to pull off his best, scoring 97, 97 and 95 points respectively in the three series which wasn’t enough to get him a place in the top six.

Pakistan’s Disappointing Show

With the exit of GM Bashir, the journey of six Pakistani athletes out of seven, who went to the Paris Olympics have ended without a medal.

The three shooters including Joseph Gulfam and Kishmala Talat failed to progress beyond the preliminary stage in five different events they took part in.

Joseph and Kishmala failed to go beyond the first stage of the men’s and women’s 10m air pistol events, finishing 22nd and 31st, respectively.

In the mixed team 10m event, both the shooters finished on the 14th spot. Kishmala also failed to impress much in the 25m pistol women event, ending on the 22nd spot out of 40 shooters.

In swimming, Mohammad Ahmed Durrani and Jehanara Nabi, finished 25th and 26th, respectively. The 18-year-old Ahmed finished last in the men’s 200m freestyle, while Jehanara came 26th in the women’s 200m freestyle category of 30 swimmers.

Sprinter Faiqa Riaz failed to qualify for the next round in the 100-meter race after she could not finish in the top three in the preliminary round of Heat 2.

Will Arshad Nadeem succeed where his compatriots failed?

All eyes are now on Pakistan’s ace javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem who will compete in the qualification stage on August 6.

The 27-year-old finished fifth at the last Olympic Games in Tokyo, and won a gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games besides being the first Pakistani to secure a silver at the Word Athletics Championship in 2023.

If Arshad manages to make it to the finals, he will be in action again on August 8 where he will be up against his chief rival as well as the defending champion from India – Neeraj Chopra.

Being the country’s only medal hope, Arshad remains confident about ending team green’s 32-year Olympic medal drought, which began after the 1992 Barcelona Games where Pakistan won a hockey bronze.