Arshad grabs bronze medal to boost Pakistan

KARACHI: Pakistan’s premier javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem added to the country’s medal-tally when he won bronze medal in javelin throw competitions of the Fourth Islamic Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Friday.

Arshad, who won bronze in the Asian Junior Championship and 2016 South Asian Games, managed a 76.80m throw to secure the fourth bronze medal for Pakistan. The country now has six medals overall.

Badar Ahmed Magour of Qatar, who last year was the youngest javelin thrower in the Rio Olympics and Qatar’s first in the discipline in the entire history, clinched gold with an 83.50m throw. Ivan Zaytsevv of Uzbekistan claimed silver with a throw of 77.60m.

In men’s long jump final, Pakistan’s Mohammad Afzal (7.15) and Mohammad Imran (6.97) ended 12th and 13th, respectively, out of 14 contestants.

In men’s 400m hurdles final, Mehboob Ali just missed the bronze medal when he finished fourth with 51.15 seconds. His elder brother Nokar Hussain finished fifth out of eight athletes with a personal best timing of 51.29.

Pakistan, featuring Abid Ali, Liaquat Ali, Mohammad Shahbaz and Nokar Hussain, were disqualified in the 4X100m relay final.

Pakistan finished sixth in women’s 4X100m relay final by clocking 48.75, their best.

Sahib-e-Asra, Samra Shabbir, Najma Parveen and Maria Maratab represented Pakistan in the event.

Wrestling: Four national grapplers failed to leave any mark in the freestyle competitions.

In 57kg quarter-finals, Mohammad Bilal, cousin of Pakistan’s premier wrestler Mohammad Inam, went down against Nebi Uzun of Turkey.

In 65kg first round, Mudassir Hussain tasted defeat at the hands of Bunde Cumba of Guinea Bissau. In 74kg first round, Asad Butt was beaten by Soner Demirates of Turkey. As Soner moved to final, Asad was given a repechage fight in which he lost to Dovletmyrat of Turkmenistan.

In the 97kg quarter-finals, Umair Tariq went down against Amir Mohammedi of Iran.

Basketball: It was again not a good day for Pakistan’s basketball teams who lost all their matches.

The men’s team lost to Turkey and Saudi Arabia, while the women team went down against Indonesia and Palestine.

Volleyball: In the men’s volleyball last group match, Pakistan defeated Turkmenistan 3-1 with the set scores of 25-22, 25-22, 24-26 and 25-21.

With this Pakistan also ended their journey. They won two and lost two. They had already been thrown out of the event when they lost their first two games against Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Pakistan will not proceed to Kyrgyzstan to feature in the World Championship qualifiers.

Tennis: In the women’s doubles quarter-finals, Pakistan’s Mehaq Khokhar and sara Mansoor went 6-4, 5-0 down against Malaysia’s pair of Jawairiah Noordin and Thelviya Selva Rajo.

In the women’s singles second round, Pakistan’s Sara Mehboob went 0-6, 0-6 down against Turkey’s Bertu Cengiz.

Pakistan have so far grabbed two silver and four bronze medals in the competitions.