Arshad Nadeem, the Olympic gold-medallist javelin thrower, has received a lot of criticism and is under fire from the rest of the country for his performance at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. He had been the defending champion and after his record-breaking performance in Birmingham, he was ninth with a performance of less than 80 metres and failed to make it to the final round of eight. Sri Lanka's Rumesh Pathirage was the gold medalist and India's Neeraj Chopra and Yashvir Singh were the silver and bronze medalists respectively.
Nadeem and his competitors had a stark contrast in preparation methods, and that is why they produced very different results in the field. Nadeem went through only one preparatory event in Switzerland and spent his training block in Lahore under the intense summer heat with local coach Salman Butt and local trainers while his opponents had to work hard and have their preparations and training very structured abroad. Neeraj Chopra finished his preparations and rehab in Switzerland and his Indian teammates like Yashvir Singh and Rohit Yadav did in Spala in Poland with world-class coaching and experts.
Aside from training logistics, Nadeem's preparation for the Games was hampered by administrative apathy and off-the-field disputes. There was a bitter battle with the Pakistan Amateur Athletics Federation (PAAF) over coaching choices from the start of his preparations, leading to the body having to pull away from him completely. The athlete said official requests for special training support were not answered by the Pakistan Sports Board and the funds for foreign trainers were not released by the Pakistan Sports Board. Most world-class athletes like former Olympic boxing bronze medalist Hussain Shah who came from a humble background lamented how a self-made champion from a poor background was left behind by the broken system of national sports facilities. And Pakistan’s only female Commonwealth Games bronze medalist boxer Fatima Zehra felt that better infrastructure and exposure would have helped her receive better honors.
