CHENNAI: Even as Mohammad Billal Afridi was warming up for the javelin throw event of South Asian Junior Athletics Championship at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai, a bunch of Pakistani officials were sitting on the stands. They were eagerly waiting for Afridi to throw the javelin - a sport that has given hope to millions back home to succeed on the biggest stage - the Olympics. Afridi finished behind India’s Rohan Yadav, Dipanshu Sharma and Dilhara Danasinghe (Sri Lanka).
If Arshad Nadeem has done, so can we, has been the general refrain as youngsters are milling for holding that spear in the hand and hurl. Arshad’s 92.97m throw, an Olympic record, was enough to fetch him the top prize, Pakistan’s first individual gold medal in the mega event. “Naturally, it has sparked a revolution,” said Rana Tanveer, assistant manager of the Pakistan team that is participating at the South Asian Athletics Championships here. The talking point was how an unorthodox style javelin thrower with minimum support managed to win gold in the Olympics. He could not compete in the European circuit because of paucity of funds. All he does is train in Lahore most of the time.
Tanveer, however, said that the Pakistan government had supported him. He said the Athletics Federation of Pakistan headed by Mohammad Akram Sahi helped him as well. “Arshad was sent to Hungary, China and recently South Africa for training,” he said, adding that they ensured that he got the best facilities internationally.
There was madness on his return to the country. Tanveer also said that the country bestowed upon him the greatest honour -- from money to cars, bungalows to buffalos. “We have a lot of support but we need to give them international standard support. We are giving and our endeavour would be to produce more such Arshad Nadeems. Because there is that innate desire to excel.”
For Afridi though, training under Arshad would be a dream come true. He said how he met a day before Arshad left for the Olympics and spoke with the junior athletes. “He had said that he would do something,” recollected Afridi, adding that they had so much confidence in the Arshad ‘bhai’ that they believed he could throw beyond 95m.
“We thought he could throw that but he did 92.97m,” said Afridi who is hoping to emulate his idol. “I did not do as I wanted but somehow managed to do my personal best in the 800g javelin. I am looking forward to training with Arshad bhai soon. He told us that there he would train us in batches before leaving for Paris and now we are all hoping that he does.”
Tanveer was not alone. International athlete Chaudhary Iqbal Akhtar and president (women wing) of Pakistan Athletics Federation Abida Tanveer too were sitting alongside him. The Pakistan delegate was more interested in the result of Afridi. Tanveer felt that India and Pakistan cricket teams should be playing more matches like in other sports. “Players from different sports are travelling to Pakistan from India and vice versa but that should extend to cricket as well,” he said.