Arshad Nadeem received the gold medal within the males’s javelin throw on the Paris Olympics on Thursday, defeating defending champion Neeraj Chopra of India to safe Pakistan’s first particular person medal on the Summer season Video games.
Nadeem, who stands six toes three inches tall, did the nation proud by throwing the javelin to a peak of 92.97 metres, enhancing the Olympic report by greater than 2.50 metres, forcing a packed crowd to offer him a standing ovation.
“After I threw the javelin, I felt it go away my hand and I felt it might be an Olympic report,” mentioned Nadeem, 27.
Earlier than Arshad’s beautiful win, Pakistan had by no means received a person gold medal on the Olympics.
Pakistan has received all three earlier gold medals in hockey, with its staff profitable gold in 1960, 1968 and 1984.
Earlier than Thursday, solely two Pakistani athletes had received particular person medals of any color – with a bronze in wrestling in 1960 and a bronze in boxing in 1988.
Because the 1992 Barcelona Video games, Pakistan has not received a medal of any variety.
However whereas the nation is rejoicing, some individuals on social media are claiming that Nadeem has damaged a 118-year-old report. Nicely, that is not true.
In an article on the X web site, sports activities journalist Faizan Lakhani questioned how a javelin thrower may break such a report.
“The earlier report for the perfect throw ever in an Olympic Video games was held by Norwegian Andreas Thorkildsen. He achieved this report within the 2008 Beijing Olympics. That is 16 years in the past,” he mentioned.
Javelin throwing was not included within the Olympics 118 years in the past, however was first included in 1908, Lakhani mentioned.
Because the Olympics state on their web site: “Javelin throw has been a part of the Olympic Video games since 1908 as a males’s occasion. A girls’s competitors was added in 1932.”
If we have been to calculate, the alleged report occurred in 1906, a 12 months during which javelin throwing was not a part of the Olympic Video games.
“Data go one after the other, so if you break a report, the time is calculated from the earlier report,” Lakhani added in his publish.
Arshad Nadeem’s numbers within the Olympic remaining
- Pakistan’s first particular person Olympic gold medal.
- Pakistan’s first ever Olympic medal in athletics,
- Pakistan’s first Olympic gold medal in any self-discipline in 40 years.
- Set a brand new Olympic report for the longest throw of 92.97 metres.
