Malaysian para athlete Ziyad Zolkefli's victory in the men's shot put (F20) final at the 2020 Paralympic Games was controversially nullified after Ukraine filed an official protest.

Ziyad, who won gold in Rio de Janeiro five years ago, had managed to hurl 17.94m on his third attempt, surpassing even the Malaysian able-bodied record of 17.54m achieved by Adi Alifuddin Hussin at the 2011 SEA Games.

It would've also been the new world para (17.29m) and Paralympic (16.84m) records, both of which were held by the 31-year-old.

However, the two-time world champion's participation was later reclassified as DNS (Did Not Start), along with Australia's Todd Hodgetts and Ecuador's Jordi Patricio Congo Villalba, for arriving late to the call room before the event.

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.

At the time of writing, a counter-protest had been issued by the Malaysian contingent with support from Australia and Ecuador.