Karachi, Pakistan, February 3, 2020: Pakistan’s leading Tokyo 2020 Olympics medal hope, javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem, will train in Finland with some of the best coaches in the world after the Athletics Federation of Pakistan struck a deal with a major athletics centre in Kuortane.
Arshad is in Nanjing, China, along with four other track and field athletes from Pakistan on a training stint. But, with the outbreak of the coronavirus, the Pakistani athletes have cut short their stay and are set to return home on February 4 when flights from Nanjing to Islamabad resume, reported The News on Sunday.
Arshad is among five Pakistani athletes who have qualified for the Tokyo Olympics. The gold medallist at last December’s South Asian Games in Nepal, Arshad is widely looked upon in Pakistan as the person who can break a long Olympic medal-drought for the country.
Pakistan last won an Olympic medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games when the men’s hockey team clinched bronze.
Arshad qualified for the Olympics with an amazing throw of 86.29 metres at the 13th South Asian Games in Pokhara and Kathmandu.
At Rio 2016, Germany’s Thomas Rohler won the gold medal with a throw of 90.30m, Julius Yego of Kenya won silver with 88.24m and Kishorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago secured bronze with 85.38m.
This shows that Arshad, who also won a bronze medal at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, is within striking distance of a medal in Tokyo.
The centre in Kuortane will not only manage Arshad’s training but also send him on tours to South Africa, Turkey and a few other countries in the run-up to the Olympics.