Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli, Malaysian defending gold medalist for the F22 shot put breaks the world record and wins the gold medal with a throw of 17.94m at the Tokyo Paralympics. Moments later, he was shattered as a protest against him for being 5 minutes late to the call room launched by the Ukranian team was approved (2 of their athletes finished 2nd and 3rd behind him). His gold medal and world record was taken back and was given a "DNS". Appeals were launched by the Malaysian, Ecuadorian and Australian team as their athletes were DNSed as well. Sadly, the appeals were rejected.
I understand that the protests were launched before the event started and another one launched after he broke the world record but why couldn't they let him keep the gold especially after letting him start...? Their category was "intellectually impaired" as well. Must have been so heartbreaking for the man. I read a piece on call rooms by Jon Gault where the call room official literally had to wake Wallace Spearmon up from the warm area to come to the call room after noticing there was one athlete missing.
This is really sad to see. Any thoughts or anything we can do about this?