“I will give my all for Pakistan, till my legs are working, I’ll keep fighting,” says Pakistan’s star athlete Arshad Nadeem who is back into training after his return from the United Kingdom where he received treatment on his right knee.
The Javelin thrower became the first Pakistani to win the World Athletics Championship medal in Budapest last August.
He hit the 87.82 metre mark and directly qualified for Olympics for the second time in a row, despite the long-standing injury.
He had later decided to skip Asian Games in October 2023 to rest as he had achieved his target of qualifying for the Olympics and for the first time he chose to rest instead of competing with an injury.
Arshad received treatment from Dr Ali Bajwa less than six months before the Paris Olympics and stayed in Cambridge for almost two weeks.
The 27-year-old said he is gradually getting into the training sessions, but he is careful with his knee this time.
He said he would only discover his condition as an elite athlete in a month. “I am slowly and steadily trying to get back into training, but I’ll only find out about where I stand regarding the Paris Olympics after a month on the field,” Arshad told The Express Tribune.
“I had this treatment which was different from the one I had before on my left knee. It was a conventional surgery and I had taken a few weeks to even start putting weight on it.
“This time, the laser surgery had a different re-sult. I can put weight on my knee just in two days,” disclosed Arshad. —Agencies