Mohd Ridzuan Mohd Puzi (left) and Ziyad Zolkefli (right)
PETALING JAYA: Mohd Ridzuan Mohd Puzi and Ziyad Zolkefli made it a glorious golden day for Malaysia at the Rio Paralympics with their record breaking exploits.
Ridzuan won the nation's first ever gold medal at the Paralympics in stunning fashion in the men's T36 100m dash and Ziyad later added one more by winning the men's F20 shot putt event with a new world record effort.
Ridzuan's time of 12.07 broke the Paralympic record of 12.25 held by Ukraine's Roman Pavlyk since the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing.
Yang Yifei of China took silver in 12.20 ahead of Brazi's Rodrigo Parreira Da Silva, who finished with the bronze in 12.54 in Rio de Janeiro.
Ridzuan is the reigning world champion in the event and he did not disappoint in lifting up the nation's hopes by dashing from behind to beat the Chinese sprinter at the finishing line.
Ziyad hurled a distance of 16.84m to break the world record of 16.59 held by Australian Todd Hodgetts since 2007 and improve on the bronze he won at the previous Paralympics in London four years ago.
Greece competitor Dimitrios Senikidis took silver with 16.17m while Hodgetts settled for bronze with 15.82m.
Ridzuan and Ziyad will be the country's first Paralympian millionaires as a gold is worth RM1mil under the National Sports Council incentive scheme.
The duo will also be entitled to RM5,000 monthly allowance for their golden feats.
Youth and Sports Ministry Khairy Jamaluddin stayed up to follow the developments and later took to social media to acknowledge the golden feats of the athletes.
"History created. We got our first gold. Thank you Ridzuan Puzi. You are our hero," he said.
"One more gold for Malaysia. Ziyad got the gold and the world record," he said later after Ziyad bagged the second gold.
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