Tokyo Paralympics: World Para Athletics upholds Ziyad's disqualification

After being allowed to compete under protest from Ukraine, the 31-year-old had set a new world record of 17.94m that would've defended the gold medal he won in Rio de Janeiro five years ago.

However, following the conclusion of the final, Ziyad along with Australia's Todd Hodgetts and Ecuador's Jordi Patricio Congo Villalba were determined to have violated the call room protocol.

Despite counter-protests from the three national contingent, their appeal was rejected by the World Para Athletics Jury of Appeal.

"The decision was based on World Para Athletics Rule 5.5 – ‘Failure to Report to the Call Room’ which states that in case athletes are not present in the Call Room at the relevant time as published in the Call Room schedule they will be shown in the results as DNS (Did Not Start).

"In accordance with this Rule, the athletes were allowed to compete under protest while the Referee considered all the evidence as to why the athletes were late to the Call Room. Having considered the evidence, the Referee determined that there was no justifiable reason for the athletes’ failure to report to the Call Room on time.

"The athletes appealed this decision to the Jury of Appeal, who gave the teams the opportunity to present all the relevant information before making its final decision. The Jury of Appeal upheld the Referee’s decision and confirmed the athletes’ results as DNS," wrote the statement.

As a result, Ukraine's Maksym Koval, who had finished runner-up with 17.34m, was upgraded to be the gold medalist and joined by Oleksandr Yarovyi (17.30m) and Greece's Efstratios Nikolaidis (15.93m) on the podium.

Ti Lian Ker, Malaysia's Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, said that the Paralympic Council of Malaysia (PCM) and the Malaysian Para Athletics Association (MPAA) would make an official appeal to the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the World Para Athletic (WPA) to reconsider the final decision.

However, the appeal can only be done after the end of the Tokyo Paralympics.