In the men’s javelin throw final at the Paris Olympics, one of the subplots is an India-Pakistan clash between defending champion Neeraj Chopra and Arshad Nadeem.
The Stade de France arena will be illuminated when a dozen top athletes on Earth sprints for gold, but if not that, will finish in the top three.
At 89.34m, his first attempt was his best of the season and also took him far ahead at qualification round leading; currently he is reigning Olympic champion and while Neeraj attempts to retain his titles, nobody should underestimate this athlete from Haryana. For Pakistan’s Nadeem who won a silver after Neeraj at Budapest World Championships, he too looked like he meant business with a spear that reached 86.59 meters as well as being his seasonal record giving him the fourth place among all other qualifiers into finals (12 in total).
Pakistan cricket players queued up to send their blessings to this star athlete hoping that Nadeem would win Pakistan’s first medal of these Games in Paris.
“Arshad Nadeem congratulations firstly for qualifying for finals,” said Test captain Shan Masood before adding “Our prayers are with you don’t let us down; we want you to bring back a medal for Pakistan” .
“You have done unbelievable things for our nation that can never be put into words. “Role model”, we hope you stand on that stage August 8th brother.#Allthebest”, added Masood.
Among those wishing him good luck are Babar Azam, Naseem Shah, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shaheen Shah Afridi and former Pakistani fast bowler Umar Gul.
As far as javelin final is concerned both Neeraj and Nadeem may face strong competition from Germany’s Julian Weber, Jakub Vadlejch of the Czech Republic and Anderson Peters from Grenada.
The final is at 11:55 pm IST tonight.
