LAHORE: Having won silver medal in the World Athletics Championships in Hungary a few days ago, the country’s premier javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem will resume his training here at the Punjab Stadium from Monday (tomorrow) to prepare for the 19th Asian Games slated to be held in Hangzhou, China, from September 23 to October 8.
“We will resume training from Monday inshaAllah,” Arshad coach Salman Butt told The News here on Saturday.
Arshad a few days ago became the first Pakistani athlete in the history of the World Championships to win a silver with a throw of 87.82 metre in Budapest.
India’s Neeraj Chopra won gold with a throw of 88.17m and it was indeed a fight between India and Pakistan.
Arshad, in fact, showed his fitness in Hungary after returning to international circuit after a long gap of one year due to fitness issues. And Butt says that he is absolutely fit.
“He has shown his fitness,” Butt said.
There are just three weeks at Butt’s disposal during which he will need to work on Arshad who is expected to deliver also in the Asian Games, an event in whose previous edition in Indonesia in 2018 he got bronze medal.
“We will work on areas relating to techniques as there were some shortcomings during the World Championships. The shortcomings were because we had little time at our disposal as we were coming back from injury and we did not get time for throwing,” Butt said.
“Obviously these things come through practice and to assess and review them repeatedly. Bio-mechanics bring improvement. Angle, speed and other things are part of bio-mechanics. We had not trained much. I think it was great to see such a performance despite so many handicaps before the event,” he said.
“Your body also does not behave like before; it behaves differently. These are certain things and we have now three and a half weeks and I will try my best to work on these areas,” he said.
Butt said that Arshad is mentally a sound athlete. “He is a sound athlete mentally and he responds well to the pressure situation. It’s difficult to perform under pressure but Arshad is different; he can handle pressure,” he said.
Butt said that Asian Games javelin standard will be like the world event. “You know the world’s top two javelin throwers are coming to the Asian Games so its standard will be very high. Two Indian javelin throwers Manu and Kishore will also come so it will be a world-level fight,” he said.
India’s top three throwers, Neeraj Chopra, DP Manu and Kishore Jena, will come while Pakistan will be represented by Arshad Nadeem and Asian bronze medallist Mohammad Yasir, who is being trained by Fayyaz Hussain Bukhari. The coach told this correspondent the other day that Yasir will produce his best and will qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics during Asian Games.
Yasir is training here at the Punjab Stadium. These days he is facing a stomach issue. The other day he was taken by coach Fayyaz to hospital. However, this correspondent has learnt that he is feeling better and has resumed training.
Alam Zeb Safi Alam Zeb Safi is a senior reporter for The News