Tokyo Paralympics: India’s Vinod Kumar loses bronze medal, technical delegates say he was not eligible for F52 class discus event

India’s Vinod Kumar has lost the bronze medal at Tokyo Paralympics after the technical delegates decided that he was not eligible for the discus F52 class. As per the latest reports, other competitors had lodged a protest against his medal win under some technicalities, following which the ceremony was put on hold.

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The Technical Delegates of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics organising committee have informed in a state ment that the men’s Discus F52 event is under ‘Classification Observation Process,’ and results are being reviewed.

Indian athlete Vinod Kumar had earlier won the bronze medal at the ongoing Tokyo Paralympics in the discus throw event.

Vinod Kumar’s throw of 19.91 meter for the third position also broke the Asian record in the category. Poland’s Piotr Kosewicz won the gold medal with a throw of 20.02m, and Croatian athlete Velimir Šandor came second with 19.98m. Kumar had registred his best throw on the fifth trial, as per reports.

Vinod Kumar was earlier announced as the bronze medal winner in the F52 category in the event. In this F52 classification, the athletes compete in a seated position.

Vinod Kumar comes from the family of Army Men, and he had also joined the BSF. But during the training period in 2002, he fell from a cliff in Leh and sustained serious injuries to his legs. He was bed-ridden for almost 10 years, during which he had lost both his parents.

After coming to know about the Para sports during the 2016 Rio Paralympics, he contacted the Sports Authority of India, and started training with the local coaches. He had participated in the Handisport Open Para Athletics Grand Prix in Paris in 2019, where he had finished in the fourth position. He had won bronze at the Fazza Para Athletics Grand Prix in 2021, where his world ranking was six.

This was the third medal won by India at the Tokyo Paralympics. Earlier, high jumper Nishad Kumar won silver in the T47 event and Bhavina Patel won silver in women’s singles table tennis in class 4 category.