Discus thrower Vinod Kumar’s bronze medal win at the Tokyo Paralympics has been put under review after competitors lodged a protest against the athlete’s classification in the F52 category at the Games.
Kumar registered throws of 17.46m, 18.32m, 17.80m, 19.12m, 19.91m, and 19.81m in his six attempts to finish third behind Poland’s Piotr Kosewiczwin (20.02m) and Velimir Sandor (19.98m) of Croatia. Kumar registered his best attempt in his fifth try.
However, the Victory Ceremony was postponed to the evening session of August 30 after a protest was lodged against him. Meanwhile, soon after his victory was announced, President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had congratulated Kumar.
“Congratulations to Vinod Kumar for winning bronze at Paralympics. You have done India proud with your podium finish. I appreciate your grit and determination. May you scale greater heights of success,” tweeted the official account of Rashtrapati Bhavan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi too in his greeting commended Vinod Kumar for his hard work and determination.
“India is rejoicing thanks to Vinod Kumar’s stupendous performance! Congratulations to him for the Bronze Medal. His hard work and determination is yielding outstanding results,” tweeted PM Modi. In Tokyo, the Technical Delegates of the Organising Committee in an official communication informed that the Men’s Discus F52 is under “Classification Observation Process.” “Results of the event are currently under review due to classification observation in competition,” it said.
The Indian contingent, however, said it is confident that Vinod Kumar will retain his bronze medal. It was only four days back that his classification was done and I was there. Three Tokyo Paralympics classifiers had classified Vinod Kumar as F52 and we are confident that the medal will stay after review even though there has been a protest,” Team India’s Deputy Chef de Mission Arhan Bagati told ANI. (ANI)
