AS in the nature of most games and contests, there are winners and losers. The winners celebrate their victories while the losers learn lessons to better guide their performance in the future.
This video of Pakistani Arshad Nadeem scoring gold in the men’s javelin throw would appear to be yet another one out of the many victories celebrated during the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Arshad Nadeem, pemenang pingat Emas olimpik untuk acara rejam lembing. No government support, no top training facilities. Sekampung kumpul duit untuk dia pergi training. Siap pecahkan olimpik record. Power 💯💯 pic.twitter.com/LWSOc0vicL
— AsyrafJr | iPhone Repair (@AsyrafRosli_) August 12, 2024
But a victory is all the sweeter when the stakes are higher. And Arshad knew it more than any athlete since his travel to the Olympics was funded by his entire village of Mian Channu.
Unlike most athletes who trained with the comfortable financial backing of the government, Arshad received no such thing.
To fully appreciate his achievement, note that he is Pakistan’s first gold medalist in 40 years, with a throw that broke the Olympic record at 92.97m.
The javelin throw has been an Olympic event since 1908, with Scandinavian athletes dominating it for the first 50 years. According to Arshad, he trained using the same broken javelin for years before successfully appealing to the Pakistani government for help to secure new equipment.
True to the sporting spirit, his Indian rival, Chopra who nabbed silver, also lent his voice to help Arshad. Even when he was young, Arshad was no stranger to the javelin, having trained with the ones crafted out of eucalyptus branches.
During his early days, his villagers and relatives donated money so he could travel to other cities for training and events.
“We developed our own weight training apparatus by using iron rods, canisters of oil and concrete,” Arshad told The Times Of India.
If an athlete who trained under such conditions could break the Olympic record in one hand, and win gold with the other, what excuse do Malaysians have not to excel?
The respectable number of world-class facilities we possess certainly beats the broken javelin that the Pakistani gold medalist trains with.
Arshad Nadeem and decorated Chinese diver Quan Hong Chan’s story is more than just an inspirational story to us all.
It is the purest representation of the human soul triumphing against all odds. Most importantly, it could also be our story. – Aug 13, 2024
Main image: geo.tv
