Dylan Bettencourt
Malaysia’s Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli was stripped of his Paralympic gold medal after being disqualified for reporting to the call room three minutes late.
The 31-year-old broke the world record in the F20 shot put event with a distance of 17.94m, over half a metre further than his own previous world record.
Zolkefli appealed after the event to the World Para Athletics was rejected, handing the Ukrainian Maksym Koval the gold medal.
Malaysian sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin described the decision as shameful.
“An absolute disgrace that goes against the spirit of the Paralympics,” said Jamaluddin on Twitter.
He said if it was a call room violation he should not have been allowed to compete.
“A stolen gold medal and world record,” said the minister.
This came with a flood of protest from angry sports fans on social media.
Spokesperson for the International Paralympics Committee (IPC), Craig Spence said the Ukraine were deeply upset by the amount of online abuse they received.
“There has been a massive outpouring of emotion from many Malaysians,” said Spence.
He called the posts ridiculous.
“Yes, you can be unhappy with our decision, but I am seeing comments on all our social media accounts which are nothing to do with the men’s shot put F20 event,” said Spence.
As per the organisation’s rules, any athlete not present in the call room at the scheduled time will be given a ‘Did Not Start’ (DNS) status. After consideration, there appeared to be no justifiable reason for being late and he was disqualified.
Ukraine consequently won two medals with Koval topping the podium courtesy of a world record throw of 17.34m and Oleksandr Yarovyi taking silver with 17.30.
Image source: @TheStar
