KARACHI (Kashmir English): Pakistan’s Javelin ace Arshad Nadeem‘s participation in the Islamic Solidarity Games is not confirmed after the World Championships in Tokyo, where he competed shortly after undergoing a calf injury.
Athletics Federation of Pakistan refrained from commenting on the star athlete and the Paris Olympics champion’s plan for the Riyadh event.
Nadeem attended the competition after a brief period of training and rehabilitation following an injury he picked up on July 4 during his training sessions.
Islamic Solidarity Games will start on November 7
The Islamic Games will start on November 7 and hopefully the season for Arshad is not over yet.
The 28-year-old javelin thrower will be defending his title if he goes to Riyadh, as he bagged the gold medal in the 2023 edition in Konya, Turkey, with a throw of 88.55 m, also creating a record of the games.
In Tokyo, Arshad struggled to qualify for the final in his first two attempts. But he managed to hit the 85.20m mark, that was enough for him to secure his place among the top 12 who competed for the podium.
Last edition’s silver medalist, Arshad, finished the javelin throw final in 10th place with hitting a mark of 82.75m, which was far from his personal best of 92.97 m, or even his season best of 86.40m that he achieved at the Asian Championship in Gumi in May.
Arshad was not the only champion who struggled with performance in Tokyo, at the same venue where he first competed at the Olympics in 2021.
Defending champion Neeraj Chopra of India finished in eighth place, his weakest performance in years, while Germany’s Julien Weber, the world number one, also slipped to fifth place.
The 2012 Olympic champion Trinidad and Tobago’s Keshorn Walcott made one of the most remarkable comebacks in athletics’ history and finally won the world championship title at the age of 32 with a throw of 88.16m on Thursday.
Grenada’s Anderson Peters finished second, and America’s Curtis Thompson remained the bronze medalist.
