Will Pakistan's Yasir surprise everyone at Asian Athletics Championship?

Pakistan's No. 2 javelin thrower, Mohammad Yasir Sultan, is building momentum ahead of the Asian Championship in South Korea.

Yasir, who won bronze medal at the 2023 Bangkok Asian Championship, has been putting in intense training under the guidance of coach Fayyaz Bukhari.

This correspondent covered his throwing session at the Punjab Stadium Lahore on Wednesday where Yasir was seen in his best element.

There is an 85-meter plus throw in him as he has improved a lot and it is expected that he would turn out to be a surprise package for the country in Korea where Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem would also be playing by his side, a moment which would be heart-warming for the entire athletics fanbase in Pakistan.

During training, Yasir was throwing not with his full force but he managed a few nice throws with his fifty percent effort and those were worth-seeing.

It’s high time for Yasir to deliver at a major stage to compel the authorities to start treating him the way they are treating Arshad Nadeem, who smashed Olympic record in Paris last year with a monstrous throw of 92.97m.

Yasir had also to feature in an invitational event in Iran a few days ago but he could not go due to financial issues. This is the big issue national athletes have been confronting with since long due to no proper patronage from the state because of the people with no sports vision holding key posts in the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) and IPC Ministry.

“Training is going well and we are doing workout for the last few months and coach has done a lot of work on my weak areas and I have improved a lot,” Yasir told Nukta.

“This time my training phase is too good as compared to the previous ones and hopefully I will manage a good throw,” Yasir said.

“It will be a motivation when I will be playing at an event in which Arshad Nadeem also will be playing. And this will also inspire me and will give me a boost. It will be a good competition with Arshad and also overall,” Yasir said.

He also lamented Iran’s tour cancellation.

“I was in full peak when Iran tour was cancelled, I don’t know why it happened. It’s normally three months phase but after the tour was cancelled, we had to manage the process within a month for the Asian Championship,” Yasir said.

Yasir’s coach Fayyaz Bukhari also is very much confident.

“InshaAllah, he will manage his best throw as in training we have managed a good throw. I am hopeful he will manage a throw of around 85m,” Bukhari told Nukta.

“We have completed our training and just a couple of sessions are left. Every day is important for us. It’s a national cause. And I will tell you that both Pakistani javelin throwers (Arshad and Yasir) will finish in the top two inshaAllah,” Bukhari said.

Bukhari said that the basic purpose of featuring in the event is to qualify for the World Championship to be held in Tokyo in September.

Both Arshad and Yasir will need to manage a minimum throw of 85.50m which is the qualification standard throw.

For Arshad it will not be an issue but if Yasir does it will be a history as this will be the first time that two Pakistani athletes will be qualifying for the World Championship.

Yasir’s personal best throw is 79.93m which he had managed in the 2023 Bangkok Asian Championship which had also fetched a bronze medal.

Yasir remained stuck around 75m for around three years until he broke that in the National Games in Quetta. It is Bukhari who guided him to come out of that zone and propelled him to his personal best throw of 79.93m later. Yasir also had finished fourth in the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games with a throw of 78.13m.