Claim: A photo shows Pakistan’s Olympian javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem’s family offering prayers while watching television as he competed in the men’s javelin throw final at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games on 7 August 2022.
Fact: The picture is not recent and is, in fact, from 2021, when Arshad Nadeem competed in the men’s javelin throw final in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Fact or Fiction
On 10 August 2022, Twitter user K Z Khan shared a photo of family and supporters praying for javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem while watching him perform in an event on television.
“Millions dollar Pic…..Arshad Nadeem’s family watching screen and praying for their Brave son during the game. And their prayers brought the fruit and he won the Gold Medal for the Country..#CommonwealthGames2022 #ArshadNadeem #javelinthrow,” the tweet reads.
The caption implies that the photo shows people watching Nadeem compete at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
On Facebook, the claim was picked up by multiple pages including People Magazine Pakistan and FHM Pakistan. It was also shared here, here, here and here.
Soch Fact Check found the claim to be misleading after searching the image with Google Lens. The search led us to an article published 8 August 2021 by Arab News which features the same photo accompanied by the caption,“Supporters and family members of Pakistani athlete Arshad Nadeem offer prayers while watching television as he competes in the men’s javelin throw final in Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, at Mian Channu in Khanewal District on August 7, 2021. (AFP)”
This suggests that the photo was taken on 7 August 2021 depicting Nadeem’s family cheering for him as he competed in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games where he missed out on a podium finish.
Soch Fact Check also found the same photo on Getty Images. The caption reveals that the photograph was taken by Shahid Saeed Mirza on 7 August 2021.
Nadeem won a gold medal for Pakistan at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games after hurling a spear to a record-breaking distance of 90.18 metres.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the 30-day period leading up to 19 August 2022 using the search term “Arshad Nadeem family.”
The first search term turned up 75,872 interactions across 124 posts. The analysis showed that Logical Pakistani’s post is performing 7.81x better than other similar posts on Facebook with 232 likes and three shares.
On Twitter, the claim was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here here, among others.
Conclusion: The viral photo does not show Arshad Nadeem’s family watching him compete in the javelin final at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games but is from 7 August 2021 when he participated in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.