To be the man, you got to beat the man.
Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan just beat the man.
At the Stade de France on Thursday night, he beat him as comprehensively as possible. On the sixth opportunity, he finally got the better of the man he’d always considered a role model.
He beat India’s reigning Olympic and world champion Neeraj Chopra and 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 throw -- a throw of 92.97m in his second throw of the competition ended it. The second, of 91.79m in his final throw, put the final 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 his biggest throw of the season. He improved on that in his second throw of the final - 89.45m. It was the second best throw of his career but it wasn’t enough.
Nadeem had said last year, after he took silver at the world Championship behind Neeraj, that he wanted to see India and Pakistan finish 1-2 at the Olympics.
Neeraj and Nadeem did just that. But the order of medals was reversed.
It says something of the kind of confidence that Neeraj generates with his achievement, that a silver medal – the best for the country in Paris – seemed like an underachievement.
It was anything but.
This was an incredible standard of competition. Julius Yego took fifth place here with a throw of 87.70 - it would have won gold in Tokyo.
While India-Pakistan rivalries always carry a hint of tension, there was anything but in this one.
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