ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) has vowed to provide top-notch training for athletes in its bid to turn them into world-class performers, state-run media reported on Monday, days after javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem clinched Olympic gold despite a lack of training facilities and resources. 

Nadeem, 27, made history last Thursday when he bagged Pakistan’s first Olympic gold medal in 40 years in the men’s javelin competition, hurling the light spear at a record-breaking distance of 92. 97 meters. This was Pakistan’s first individual Olympic gold medal in a country where limited funding for sports is usually spent on cricket and hockey teams. 

The athlete is the son of a daily wage laborer in Pakistan’s Mian Channu city in Punjab and never had access to proper training facilities. His brother told international wire agency Reuters that he and Nadeem initially trained with improvised homemade javelins that they made by using long eucalyptus branches with iron tips on their ends. Nadeem was still training with substandard javelins months before the Paris Olympics until a last-minute appeal saw the Pakistani government intervene to sponsor his equipment. 

While Nadeem’s triumph on the international stage has won him accolades and laurels, it has also put the spotlight on the lack of support and facilities local athletes get from authorities in the country. 

“Deputy DG Muhammad Shahid Aslam said the PSB is leaving no stone unturned in its efforts to provide top-notch training to athletes,” the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported on Monday. 

Aslam said the PSB is arranging qualified and certified coaches to work with athletes and organize training sessions for them in foreign countries so that they are exposed to international standards. 

“To another query, Director General Muhammad Shahid Islam urged social media activists and users to refrain from spreading propaganda against sports and instead focus on showcasing the soft image of Pakistan at the global level,” APP said. 

He cited Nadeem’s example, saying that the athlete was sent by the PSB to various countries to train, which ultimately contributed to his remarkable success in winning the top medal at the Olympics. 

Nadeem returned home from Paris late Saturday night to a hero’s welcome at the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore. Thousands thronged the airport to catch a glimpse of the star athlete, whose Turkish Airlines flight was saluted by water cannons after it landed at the airport. 

Top government functionaries welcomed Nadeem at the airport, garlanded with flowers from where he was taken to Mian Channu in a VVIP police protocol.