Arshad Nadeem clinches gold at Asian Athletics Championship

Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem, although, could not do what was expected from him but he was still able to win another gold for Pakistan but this time at the Asian Championship which concluded at Gumi, South Korea, on Saturday.

Arshad clinched his maiden Asian Championship javelin throw title with a throw of 86.40 meters. However, he could not break the Championship record of 86.72m which had been set up by Chinese Taipei's Chung Chai Tsun in Doha in 2019.

Arshad was featuring in any competitive event after ten months since clinching his record gold in the Paris Olympics last year with a monstrous throw of 92.97m.

India's Sachin Yadav went away with a silver medal with a throw of 85.16 meters while Japan's Yuta Sakiyama finished with a bronze after throwing 83.75 meters.

Arshad made a quiet start when he managed a throw of 75.64 meters in his first attempt in the final, which included 12 competitors.

However, he then brought little bit discipline in himself and raised his performance by managing 76.80m, 85.57m, 83.99m and 83.44m before unleashing his best throw of the day which was recorded as 86.40m which helped him fetch gold. But it was evident from his body language that the javelin king was not in his best element.

This feat although does not match Arshad's standard as the world's most destructive player but at least this was necessary before the World Championship which is his prime target.

The global event will be held in Tokyo in September, an event in which India's Neeraj Chopra, former Olympic champion, will defend his title. But Arshad will need to do hard work for the world event.

Arshad had last claimed silver in the World Championship in Budapest, Hungary.

Arshad was seen in top rhythm in the early part of the 2022 when he set up new records in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games and Turkey Islamic Games inside two weeks’ time. And he then won the World Championship silver in Budapest in 2023 and in Paris last year he bewildered everyone with his magical performance when he clinched historic gold in the Paris Olympics with the sort of throw which was never seen before in the Olympics history.

Meanwhile in Gumi, Pakistan faced a huge disappointment when its No2 javelin thrower Mohammad Yasir Sultan failed badly in the final.

Yasir was expected to pull off his best but he could not do well and lagged far behind even his personal best throw of 79.93m.

Yasir started the final with 70.53m throw. He then managed 75.39 but his graph got down as he recorded 74.50m, 72.92m, X and his sixth and last throw was 74.78m.

Yasir, who had won bronze in the 2023 Asian Championship in Bangkok, had done 85m plus throw in practice in Pakistan and he had also done 83m in warm-up on Saturday before the final in Gumi but it was seen that he was under pressure at the major stage as he failed to get the best out of himself.

"Yes Yasir's body did not respond," Yasir's coach Fayyaz Hussain Bukhari told Nukta from South Korea.

"He even managed 83m plus throw in warm-up today but it happens and there are so many technical things and we have learnt a lot from this event," Bukhari said.

"We will forget this event here and we have to move on and we have to prove that Yasir has a big throw in him which he will manage inshaAllah at any other stage," Bukhari said.