With an eye on Paris 2024, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem to undergo knee surgery
Arshad Nadeem is the only Pakistani javelin thrower to have won a medal at the World Athletics Championships. He had successfully undergone elbow surgery in 2022.
Pakistan’s top javelin throw athlete, Arshad Nadeem, will undergo knee surgery in the United Kingdom, hoping to be fit for the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics in time.
The reigning Commonwealth Games champion, Arshad Nadeem had skipped last year’s Asian Games in Hangzhou, the People’s Republic of China, citing a knee problem.
“I have decided to have the knee surgery now because it has been bothering me a lot since last year, and I tried rehab programs, but they didn’t work,” Arshad was quoted as saying by PTI.
This is the second time in just over a year that Arshad will fly to the UK for surgery. In December 2022, the javelin ace underwent a successful elbow surgery in London.
With a 90.18m throw, the 27-year-old Pakistani created a new javelin throw record at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham to claim the title. It ended Pakistan’s 60-year wait for a CWG gold medal.
It was only the second time that an Asian athlete crossed the 90m mark. Chinese Taipei’s Chao-Tsun Cheng was the first with a throw of 91.26m at the 2017 World Underside, which remains the Asian record. Neeraj Chopra’s personal best throw is 89.94m achieved at the 2022 Stockholm Diamond League.
Arshad Nadeem is also the first Pakistani athlete to win a medal, a silver, at the World Athletics Championships at Budapest 2023. Neeraj Chopra, who is the current javelin throw world champion, bagged the gold medal.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Arshad finished fifth with a distance of 84.62m.
Pakistan are yet to win a medal in athletics at the Olympics. Pakistan have won 10 medals at the Summer Games since the 1948 edition. Only two of these are individual medals - wrestling and boxing - while the rest are in hockey.