Ukrainian discus thrower Mariia Pomazan ordered to give back gold medal after scoring blunder

 
3 September 2012

Pomazan was presented with the gold medal on Friday morning after being declared the winner of the F35/36 women's discus competition, an event in which lengths are converted to points to account for the different impairments of the athletes involved.

But it later emerged that Omega's scoring system was flawed, leading to the medal places being reallocated and Pomazan relegated to silver.

China's Wu Qing was promoted to the gold medal position from second and Australia's Katherine Proudfoot, initially given fifth place, was upgraded to bronze.

The International Paralympic Committee announced this afternoon that two gold medals would be awarded, with Pomazan allowed to keep hers although it would not be added to Ukraine's total medal tally.

The IPC's plan would also have allowed China's Bao Jiongyu, who had dropped from third to fourth, to keep hold of her unofficial bronze.

Craig Spence, the IPC's director of communications, said the decision was made "in the spirit of fair play".

But the IPC tonight performed a U-turn, announcing that Pomazan and Bao would have to return their medals, with a new ceremony to be held tomorrow morning.

It is understood that China had objected to the IPC's plan to let Pomazan keep her gold medal.

An IPC spokesman said: "Since Friday we have tried to investigate if an alternative could be found that suited all parties that was within the rules.

"This has not been possible."

The Ukrainian National Paralympic Committee had asked for the original result to stand but that was rejected by the jury of appeal.

This morning, Pomazan bounced back from the disappointment of her discus demotion by claiming gold in the shot put.

Afterwards, she said of the discus blunder: "I was very, very angry. I didn't even know I could be that angry, so this brought very strong feelings for such a performance."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in