Paris 2024 Olympics: Sterling Neeraj overshadowed by magnificent Arshad

To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man.

Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan just beat the man.

At the Stade de France on Thursday night, in his sixth encounter with the reigning Olympic and world champion Neeraj Chopra, Arshad finally got the better of the man he’d always considered a role model.

It took an all-time great Olympic performance to do it.

He bettered an Olympic record that had stood for 16 years, not once but twice. The first time, an effort of 92.97m in his second throw of the competition broke it. The second of 91.79m in his final throw put the exclamation mark on a near-flawless performance.

Neeraj fought as hard as he could. He pushed himself harder than he ever had this season. In the qualification round, he produced 89.34m, his biggest throw of the year. He improved on that in his second throw of the final with a mark of 89.45m. It was the second-best throw of his career. It wasn’t enough. His career has been almost uniformly 24 carats — gold at the Tokyo Olympics, Budapest World Championships, Commonwealth and Asian Games — and now there’s a little more silver in that collection. 

It says something about the kind of confidence that Neeraj instills in fans that a silver medal — the best for the country in Paris so far — seems like an underachievement.

It is anything but. An Olympic silver in Paris, to go along with his gold from Tokyo three years ago, cements Neeraj’s claim as the greatest Indian athlete of this generation, if not all-time. It took Neeraj pushing himself to his absolute limit before he was even able to keep a place on the podium.

This was an incredible standard of competition. Julius Yego took fifth place here with a throw of 87.72 m; it would have won gold in Tokyo. “It’s the greatest competition in men’s javelin throw in history,” Neeraj said.

His own effort of 89.45m was the furthest anyone has ever had to throw for a silver medal. At most Olympic Games, this would have been more than enough. But not in a competition where the Pakistani Arshad was at his best.

Arshad didn’t start out looking like he was going to win. In his practice throws before the start of the competition, he barely reached the 75m mark. In his first attempt, once the competition had started in all seriousness, he forgot his run-up in the middle of his runway and had to jog back to his starting line. When he threw, his spear didn’t even get to 60m. Disgusted, Arshad invalidated the attempt by stepping over the foul line.

Neeraj fouled his first attempt as well, but that wasn’t because he had made a bad throw. His javelin had landed in the 86m range, but he had fallen over the foul line while making his throw.

There was nothing wrong with Arshad’s second attempt. It always seems to be a bit of a mystery where he gets his power from. His run-up extends to about the second lane of the runner’s track, just a little further from the javelin thrower’s runway straight. Arshad said later that his run looked the way it did because it was a throwback to his days as a fast-bowling cricketer.

It might seem unusual, but there’s no questioning the outcome. When Arshad’s spear left his hand, it flew higher and further than anyone else’s in the stadium. When it landed, the Pakistani lifted both arms in the air in triumph. The throw was measured at 92.97m. In no competition anywhere in the world has someone thrown that much and ended up on any of the lower steps of the podium.

It’s a throw that would demoralise any opponent. Neeraj isn’t one of them. He has never thrown over 90m at any competition in his life, but he won’t give up his crown that easily.

He walked past the runway all the way to the eighth lane on the athlete’s track. He slapped himself on the thighs. He stretched his groin. He called for the crowd to get behind him, and they obliged. Then he raced down the track before blocking his momentum and hurling the javelin. Even for Neeraj, the throw was huge.

Three years ago, Neeraj would turn to the spectators behind him and raise his hands in triumph even before his throw had landed, in complete confidence that the throw he had made had been perfect.

This time, though, he continued to follow his spear’s trajectory. It was measured at 89.45m. It was big, but not big enough. Over the next four throws, Neeraj continued to try to improve on his attempt, but he couldn’t. He ended up fouling all of them. This was his worst competition in terms of successful throws made; just his second one counted as a legitimate mark.

He explained later that a chronic groin ailment that he had been dealing with for the past seven years had flared up at the start of the year. He had previously been advised surgery, but knowing that would cause him to miss major competitions, he had put off the decision. He had dragged himself to the Olympics. He had willed himself to Paris for one shootout.

But while he had made it to the track, the injury had never left his mind. Every time Neeraj stretched before a throw, it was because he was worried about another tournament-ending twinge. He had already suffered that outcome at the 2022 World Championships, where he pulled that same muscle in his inner thigh while chasing the then leader Anderson Peters’ field-leading (and ultimately gold medal-winning) throw. He said that when he was throwing, more than half his thinking was devoted to overcoming the fear that he’d injure himself once again. Unable to settle into a groove, he would often fall over the line while making a throw.

His second throw, he said, was as poor from a technical perspective as it could be. His approach to the runway was slow; it was a trundle compared to the sprint he would do prior to 2018. His cross step was poorly aligned. When he throws, he said, he mostly uses his arm to push the javelin. The muscles of the arm are tiny compared to those of the thigh. But Neeraj can’t depend on his once-powerful legs. So he has to make do with what he can.

Even a less-than-fully fit Neeraj was able to bully his way onto the podium. But it isn’t enough for gold. Not against Arshad, who showed up on Thursday.

As Neeraj tried to battle back into the competition, the stadium commentator remarked how this was the first time an India-Pakistan rivalry had extended into the Olympic Games. But while the two were locked in a desperate, high-stakes battle, there was no rancour in his fight.

Arshad has said previously that his biggest fight on the field is with himself. Indeed, he’s someone who has never been shy about admitting his admiration for Neeraj. Whenever he refers to him, it’s as Neeraj Chopra bhai (brother).

Despite being from two sides of a border, both have plenty in common. Both were nearly the same age; they were born in the same year: Arshad was born in January and Neeraj in December of 1997. Both are the sons of farmers in villages far from the city— Arshad in Mian Channu in Punjab and Neeraj from Khandra near Panipat in Haryana. Before every competition they’ve competed in, Nadeem makes a point to take a picture with Neeraj and his coaches. In these pictures, Neeraj, a powerfully built 6 foot 90 kilo physical specimen, always looks surprisingly tiny standing next to the Pakistani, who has some four inches of height and some 10 kilos of muscle on him. But for all the size differences, it was always the Indian who was the star in the centre of the picture. Arshad was always the fanboy, happy to be included in the frame.

Ahead of the last World Championships, Arshad wished the Indian the best of luck for the competition. Ahead of the 2022 Commonwealth Games, when Neeraj had pulled out due to injury, Arshad said he was praying for his health and had hoped to compete against him.

The two have been competing against each other since 2016 at the South Asian Games in Guwahati. In all these years, Neeraj never lost. “Until now, God was with me. But now, at the biggest stage, he has managed to beat me. He has worked hard. He deserves this win,” Neeraj said gamely.

He was only returning the favour. Last year, after he took silver at the World Championship, just behind Neeraj, Arshad said how happy he was for the Indian’s gold medal. He added that the same 1-2 finish was what he wanted to see at the Olympics too.

Neeraj and Arshad did just that once again. But the order of medals was reversed.

There could be no disappointment about it. Neeraj’s throw to win a silver was as impressive as it came. Arshad, though, was magnificent.