LAHORE: Pakistan’s Tayyab Raza added one more bronze to Pakistan’s tally at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games on Saturday after finishing third in men’s 125kg wrestling competition. Raza won two out of four bouts in the event played according to Nordic system, which is like a round robin system where the top athlete on the table wins the gold. Raza got 11 classification points and 14 technical points with two wins and two defeats to finish third in the completion to win bronze medal. The Pakistani wrestler defeated Claude Mbianga and Sinive Boltic while losing against India’s Sumit and Canada’s Korey Jarvis.
Pakistan’s Nadeem finishes eighth in javelin final:
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem, who had qualified for the finals, could not make an impressive mark as he finished eighth at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games on Saturday. Nadeem’s throw in Group B qualifier was 80.45m, which is also a new national record by any Pakistani in men’s javelin throw competition. He improved his previous record which was 78.33m. However, Nadeem finished eighth in the event with 76.02m. If Nadeem had managed to win a medal he would have been the first Pakistani in more than 50 years to win a javelin throw medal for the country in the Commonwealth Games. The last Pakistani to win a medal in the javelin competition was in 1966. Mohammad Nawaz had clinched bronze in Jamaica.
Published in Daily Times, April 15th 2018.