Ziyad hoping to earn ticket to commonwealth games in Gold Coast

Rio Paralympics shot put gold medallist Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli who had competed in the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games with normal athletes hopes to achieve an almost impossible feat by qualifying for the prestigious Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, next year, in the same category.

Ziyad said since the shot put event for F20 (Intellectual Disability) would not be included in the programme for paralympic athletes by the host country (only events involving wheel chair, vision impaired and amputee), he would try to qualify for the shot put event for normal athletes.

However, Ziyad knows that to qualify for the Commonwealth Games would not be an easy task since the qualifying mark has been set at 18.5m compared with his personal best of 17.29m.

"To set the record of 17.29m at the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London, it took me two years. Therefore, to surpass the 18.5m distance would need time. It is not impossible but a lot of hard work and time is needed," he told reporters when met at the National Sports Day celebrations held at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil, today.

During the World Para Athletics Championships held at the London Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in July 2017, Ziyad set a new world Para record of 17.29m, by erasing his own world mark of 16.84m that was set in Rio, Brazil last year.

In the Commonwealth Games scheduled from April 4 to 15, next year, only five para sports will be hosted, namely athletics, lawn bowls, track cycling, table tennis and powerlifting, offering only 20 slots.

--BERNAMA