Haider bags bronze, makes history

Pakistan's Haider Ali carries on doing his country proud, proving to be its most successful individual athlete on the international stage.

On Friday, Haider won his fourth medal at the Paralympics as he threw his discus 52.54 metres away to grab the bronze at Stade de France.

Haider was competing in the F37 category. He won Pakistan's first gold medal at the Paralympics in Tokyo.

Now his medals tally at the Games, the biggest stage in the world, is four with one gold medal, one silver and two bronze medals.

Haider had been looking to defend his title but he found himself stuck with a string of bad throws that were flagged one after the other barring his first throw which was 52.28 metres and he remained in top place till Canada's Jesse Zesseu posted a throw of 52.81 metres.

Haider kept coming back to his coach and at the stands where official Huma Beg along with Chef de Mission Ahmad Shami were seated to cheer him on.

Zesseu was able to clinch the silver medal as his best throw was 53.24 metres, while the gold medal went to Uzbekistan's Tolibboy Yuldashev with a throw of 57.28 metres.

"We threw around 59 metres in the training. I feel Haider just got upset during the competition and could not refocus, but I know he did his best," coach Akbar Mughal told this correspondent.

Tolibboy's supporters were sitting right next to the Pakistani contingent in the Z10 zone of the seats in the stadium. They were ecstatic to see their athlete win the gold, and Tolibboy was a favourite to win as the world champion.

Haider had been going through troubled times when it came to the facilities, funds, and even sponsors.

"I trained at home in Gujranwala, during the rains really, I was training in the field which was flooded with the rainwater," Haider had told this correspondent in an interview the other day.

"Even the discs that I use are the ones I bought, made locally, for Rs 2000, I do know that my competitors get a lot more facilities. It is true that I don't have the world-class discus either to train with, let alone going abroad to train."

Before the event, Haider said that he was missing out on the major insight into how other throwers are doing as he was not able to compete at the World Championships last year.

"Getting enough competition is necessary. I don't get to participate in international events as much because we do not have the funds and I don't know how new athletes are doing.

"I was not able to compete in the last major international event where everyone else did," rued Haider, who is an elite global athlete but is not recognised as such at home. The Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) had managed to arrange a 10-day training camp for him before the event, but that was nothing really for an event of this magnitude and .

Haider had shifted to discus throw after he sustained a long-term injury in the long jump while his medals at the 2008 and 2016 Paralympics have been in that discipline and he only started to focus on discus throw in 2012.

"It would seem that my medal was out of the blue, but the truth is, for that gold in Tokyo I had worked so hard for eight years without appropriate resources and only with the help of the National Paralympic Committee of Pakistan," explained the 2022 Asian Para Games gold medallist.

Despite the heavy odd, it is creditable that Haider directly qualified for Paris with a throw of 51.23 metres.