Paralympics committee rejects Malaysia’s appeal over shot-put results

The World Para Athletics has rejected Malaysia’s appeal on the results of the men’s shot-put F20 final at the Tokyo Paralympics which saw national athlete Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli disqualified from the gold medal over a technical error.

In a statement, it said the decision was based on World Para Athletics Rule 5.5 on the failure to report to the call room.

The rule states that where athletes are not present in the call room at the relevant time published in the call room schedule, they will be listed in the results as “did not start” (DNS).

The committee also said the referee’s decision was upheld by the jury of appeal.

Ziyad, along with Jordi Patricio Congo Villalba of Ecuador and Australia’s Todd Hodgets, were disqualified for supposedly being late to enter the call area after a protest lodged by Ukraine, whose athlete Maksym Koval was subsequently announced as the gold medallist.

Ecuador and Australia also lodged appeals over the decision, which were likewise dismissed.

Ziyad, who won the gold at the 2016 Rio Paralympics Games, was classified as DNS despite completing all his throws in the final at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium.

He threw the shot put a distance of 17.31m in his first attempt, breaking his previous world mark of 17.29m set at the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London.

His third attempt saw him throwing the shot put even further, to 17.94m.

Koval was given the gold medal with a throw of 17.34m while fellow Ukrainian Oleksandr Yarovyi took silver with 17.30m and Greece’s Efstratios Nikolaidis took bronze with 15.93m.