In the history of world athletics, no one has ever thrown the javelin over incredible distances with greater ease than Arshad Nadeem. Here's how it works: Nadeem goes out for an evening jog in a standard tracksuit and sleeveless T-shirt, finds a stick, continues jogging at a slightly bored pace, throws it up in the air, and just stands there, frowning.
On a mild Thursday evening in Paris, he went for his usual jog and won the javelin with a score of 92.97 metres. Olympic record broken. Pakistan's first individual gold medal. Same old same old. Now, where's the chai?
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Arshad Nadeem, Neeraj Chopra and Anderson Peters after the javelin final at the Paris Olympics. Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images
The distance, the skill, the impossibility of it all was breathtaking.
As the world stood in stunned amazement, his good friend from across the border, Neeraj Chopra, quickly followed suit and threw the javelin, the second longest distance ever, with a throw of 89.45 metres.
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“Are you chasing greatness?” he seemed to say. “I'll chase you…at least with all my might.”
The Olympic javelin final, which had been threatening to be a spectacular competition after the qualifying rounds, had entered the realm of legend, and it was two South Asians who were poised to elevate it to that level.
Their techniques are vastly different — Neeraj explodes with latent velocity from a coiled spring, while Nadeem derives pure power from his bull-like shoulders through sheer size — and their competitive successes are vastly different (prior to Paris, Nadeem had never beaten Neeraj). Neeraj is the epitome of consistency, while few elite athletes have been as inconsistent as Nadeem. And their support systems are entirely different: Neeraj has an elite machine behind him, while Nadeem had to borrow money from villagers to fund his early training.
Neeraj Chopra congratulates Arshad Nadeem after the men's javelin final JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images
Yet they share a fundamental commonality: Before them, no one would have imagined that Indians and Pakistanis could dominate athletics at the world level in the way that they do today.
This was an event they dominated. Julius Yego's fifth-place throw of 87.72m in Paris should have been gold in Tokyo. “To me, this is the best group of throwers in the history of the javelin,” Anderson Peters (bronze here) told me in 2022, and they proved it here. The top five throws were 92.97m, 89.45m, 88.45m, 88.50m, and 87.72m. Rarely do we see such a tightly packed group, and on such a high scale, at the Olympics.
The competition was close but somehow it was all Nadeem versus Neeraj. And Nadeem and Neeraj.
Christian Petersen/Getty Images
The photograph of them meeting at the 2018 Asian Games, with flags surrounding each other, had a certain symbolic feel to it, but neither the man who took it nor those who first saw it could have predicted where they would go.
Though their on-field rivalry wasn't particularly close between 2018 and 2021, Nadeem was always close with Neeraj. After their historic run at the Tokyo Olympics, Neeraj had said, “I said back then that it was great that we both made it to the finals. It's rare for Asian throwers to do something like this.” At the time, he made great efforts to quash harmful and destabilizing rumors that were circulating against Nadeem in the Indian online space. He has been quick to do this often ever since, downplaying the hostility between the nations and emphasizing that we are all fundamentally one.
In 2022, Nadeem won Commonwealth gold in Neeraj's absence with a throw of 90.18 metres and told reporters in Birmingham that he missed his friend: “It's going to be a lot of fun (between us) in the next tournament.”
And they had fun. After finishing first and second at the 2023 World Championships, Nadeem had said he wanted a repeat result at the Paris Olympics. Nadeem got his wish: India vs Pakistan at the World Championships and Pakistan vs India at the Olympics. A win for the subcontinent.
AP Photo/Matthias Schroeder
It's a rivalry they both take great pride in, an intense one where neither wants to lose an ounce (Exhibit A: Neeraj's face in this final), but somehow they're also able to see the bigger picture.
For example, after the World Championships finished 1-2, Neeraj's mother dismissed a provocative question about India versus Pakistan with a simple, “Look, once you step on the field, everyone is a sportsman… I am very happy that the Pakistani players won, I am very happy.”
On Thursday night, she stood up to sum it all up in the best way possible and said one of the sweetest words I've ever heard: “I'm happy with the silver medal. (Arshad Nadeem) is my child too. Everyone worked hard to get there.”
Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem celebrates after winning gold in the men's javelin final. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportfile via Getty Images
In a tight final, Neeraj pushed himself to the limit to catch Nadeem before fouling out four times, including once with too much javelin power that sent him over the finish line. He took the silver medal, becoming the first Indian athlete to win gold and silver in individual events and just the fourth Indian athlete to win multiple individual events.
Nadeem, meanwhile, had taken Pakistan's sport to a level it had never been on before, and at the end of the competition, as he calmly jogged to his final throw with 91.79 metres, it seemed as if a historic, record-breaking night had been given just that extra boost.
Nadeem vs Neeraj. Neeraj and Nadeem. There is nothing like it in world sport.
