NEW DELHI: In a major blow to India in the Olympic Games, athlete Vinod Kumar lost his bronze medal in the men's discus throw F52 class at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics on Monday.
As per the latest reports, Vinod, who hails from Haryana's Rohtak, had bagged a bronze medal after achieving a new Asian record of 19.91m throw on Sunday. However, complaints were made against him by fellow competitors following which various aspects of discus thrower were checked by a classification panel and it was finalized that Vinod was not eligible to compete in that specific category.
A statement from the organizers said the panel, which reviewed the athlete, was not able to allocate sport class to Vinod and that he has been designated as "Classification Not Completed (CNC)". As such, Vinod is not eligible for the men's F52 discus medal event and his results in that contest were void, the statement said.
The bronze medal has been awarded to Aigars Apinis of Latvia. His record was 19.54m.
India has performed comparatively well in the Olympics this time than other years. The country took its tally of medals to seven at the end of the Monday morning session. In a span of just more than an hour (on Monday), India won five medals, including two gold, two silver, and a bronze. Altogether, India has seven medals in Tokyo Paralympics.
India had become the first Asian nation to take part in the Olympics in the year 1900. Only one athlete from the country – Norman Pritchard participated and bagged two silver medals in athletics.
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