Pakistan has a brand new hero. During this year’s Olympic Games in Paris, Arshad Nadeem, a 27-year-old from Pakistan, defeated India’s defending champion, Neeraj Chopra, in the javelin throw. Not only that, Nadeem set a new Olympic record, throwing the javelin 92.97 meters (or 305 feet), becoming the first Pakistani to earn an individual gold medal.
It’s the first time the South Asian country has earned a medal since 1992, when its field hockey team notched a bronze. It’s the first gold medal since 1984—also earned by the country’s field hockey team. It was a hard-won victory for Nadeem, who grew up one of eight children in a mud brick house in rural Punjab. He got his start in javelin by using “long eucalyptus branches with iron tips on their ends,” his brother told Reuters.
