KARACHI: Pakistan’s premier javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem has started tough workout at Lahore in a bid to win Olympics seat in the World Athletics Championships in Doha next month.
The 2018 Asian Games bronze medallist is being trained by his WAPDA coach Fayyaz Hussain Bukhari at the PSB Coaching Centre in Lahore.
Three sprinters and Olympian Mehboob Ali are also with Arshad in the camp which has been in operation at the Punjab capital for the last few days.
The rest are being prepared for the South Asian Games to be hosted by Nepal in Kathmandu and Pokhara.
The World Athletics Championships will be held at the iconic Al-Khalifa Stadium in Qatar’s capital from September 27 to October 6.
If Pakistan fails to qualify for 2020 Tokyo Olympics directly then the nation may get wild cards, most probably for one male and one female athlete, as usual, for the world’s most prestigious sports extravaganza.
Arshad is capable of creating history. He has ahead not only the global event in Doha but also the 13th South Asian Games in Nepal. He is optimistic about achieving his Olympics target in the stipulated time-frame.
“I have come to Lahore to prepare for the World Championships which will offer me an opportunity to press for the Olympics seat,” Arshad told ‘The News’ from Lahore after training on Saturday. “It’s just simple that I will have to manage 85m throw if I have to play in Tokyo Olympics. I can do this,” Arshad said.
Arshad, the 2016 South Asian Games and 2016 Vietnam Asian Junior Championships bronze medallist, lost too much time by staying idle after his medal-winning feat in the Asiad last year in Indonesia. The only time he got an international exposure since the Asiad was when he was fielded in the Asian Championships in Doha last April where he failed to live up to the billing.
“Ups and downs are part of life,” said the former IAAF Under-20 World No3. “You get down when it is not your day. Javelin throw is a sort of event in which you always have a chance to do something stunning if you work hard,” Arshad said.
“In Lahore, I am focusing on conditioning these days. I am facing great training load. I have not tried throwing too much. I know the 85m target is within reach. It depends how much you work for it,” Arshad said.
He said it would be of great value if he was sent abroad for training.
“The AFP is doing its job well. It has managed the much-needed camp for us,” Arshad said.
The AFP president Major General (retd) Mohammad Akram Sahi the other month told ‘The News’ in an interview that he was trying to manage a couple of Chinese coaches, one for javelin and the other for preparing sprinters.
A senior official of AFP told ‘The News’ on Saturday that the camp in Lahore was being backed jointly by the PSB and AFP.
“We need to start full-fledged camp for South Asian Games. We have already given list to the PSB and POA and are waiting for approval,” the official said.
