Paris 2024 Paralympics: Silver glitter fades Muhammad Ziyad's 'black episode'
BERNAMA
04/09/2024
PARIS: The success of winning a silver medal in this edition has erased the dark episode haunting the country's athletics champion, Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli, whose participation was canceled due to being late to the call room at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
Taking a lesson from the incident, the 34-year-old athlete arrived 20 minutes earlier to the call room at the Stade de France before starting the men's F20 (intellectual disability) shot put event at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games yesterday.
According to Muhammad Ziyad, even though he did not succeed in recapturing the gold medal, he was still satisfied to be back on the podium after the last time he did it in Rio 2016.
"Alhamdulillah, for a silver medal it's better than nothing at all. For me, I really have high hopes for a gold medal, but I don't feel very disappointed because I tried my best earlier.
"The story that haunted me (Tokyo 2020) is finally over. I feel relieved because that moment has been haunting me for the past three years until I was depressed and now I can prove it with a silver medal, it's like a dream," he told Bernama here.
In the final, Muhammad Ziyad won the silver medal with a record of 17.18 meters (m) behind Ukrainian representative Oleksandr Yarovyi who did a new world record of 17.61m for gold.
His teammate, Maksym Koval had to settle for bronze after throwing 16.99m.
After yesterday's action, the Selangor-born athlete continued to set his sights on returning to action in the 2028 edition in Los Angeles, aiming to bring home the gold medal for Malaysia.
"I never thought about retirement again. Maybe I will play again for the next Paralympic Games and depending on my body condition then to try to do my best.
"After this, I will rest for a while and spend time with my family," he said.
At the same time, Muhammad Ziyad dedicated the silver medal he won to his father, Zolkefli Othman who celebrated his 70th birthday last Sept 1.
