Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif shared an old picture on social media to praise Arshad Nadeem, who recently won the javelin competition at the Paris Olympics 2024. Nadeem achieved this victory by throwing the javelin further than India’s star athlete Neeraj Chopra, securing a gold medal for Pakistan in the men’s javelin final held at the Stade de France on Friday. Prime Minister Sharif expressed his congratulations to Nadeem for his outstanding achievement.
In his post, Sharif included an old image of himself giving Nadeem a cheque worth 10 lakh as a token of appreciation for his exceptional performance. However, this action drew criticism from former Pakistani cricketer Danish Kaneria, who asked Sharif to remove the photo. Kaneria argued that the prize money might not be sufficient for Nadeem, the Olympic champion, to even purchase airplane tickets.
“Prime Minister, please just give a polite congratulations. Remove the photo of the one million rupees you gave—it doesn’t help with his actual needs. This sum is too little for him to even buy airplane tickets. It’s disrespectful to both Arshad and the country, especially given his current challenges,” Kaneria said.
Maryam Nawaz, the Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province, has promised a 10 crore (PKR) cash reward for Nadeem. She also pledged to name a sports city after Arshad in his hometown of Khanewal. Nadeem, the 2022 Commonwealth champion, placed fifth in the Tokyo Olympics. The Pakistani javelin thrower won a silver medal at the Budapest World Championships. In Paris, Nadeem broke the Olympic record with a throw of 92.97 meters, securing gold for Pakistan. Defending champion Neeraj came in second with 89.45, and Grenada’s Anderson Peters took bronze with 88.54m.
