Daily Times

The 23-year-old athlete, Arshad Nadeem, brought pride for the nation after he became the first Pakistani to directly qualify for Tokyo Olympics 2021.

The world’s iconic sporting event, which was earlier scheduled to be held in July, has now been postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic

The direct qualification criterion for the Olympics is 85 meters, and thus the Pakistani athlete will be seen in action in Tokyo next year. The Olympics, which were scheduled to be held this year, have been postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19. The delay is the first-ever such incident in Olympics’ 124-year modern history.

In these circumstances, expectations of Pakistan winning a medal have dwindled gradually. After all, there have only ever been two individuals to win a medal for Pakistan — wrestler Mohammad Bashir in Rome 1960 and boxer Hussain Shah in Seoul 1988. But the emergence of one athlete has changed the bleak situation and given the country its first hopes of an Olympic medal in almost 30 years.

Arshad, who aims to win a medal at next year’s Olympics, has been confined to his village which these days is suffering immensely because of load-shedding.

He qualified for the Tokyo Olympics through an amazing throw of 86.29metre during the 13th South Asian Games in Nepal last year which also fetched the gold medal for him.

This is the first time that a Pakistani athlete has qualified for Olympics through a world-level throw.