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Curious case of Gurjar's no-show

Buda Mendes/Getty Images

Devendra Jhajharia's gold in the javelin throw F46 category at the Rio Paralympics overshadowed the controversy around his fellow athlete Sundar Singh Gurjar's disqualification from the event.

Three Indians were to compete in the event: Jhajharia, Rinku Hooda (who finished fifth with a personal best of 54.39m) and Gurjar. But Gurjar, among the favourites to win, didn't start the event.

According to a report on TV channel NDTV's website, Gurjar was not present at the time of roll call. His family claimed he "did not understand English" when his name was called out.

"All athletes were warming up in the same area, including Sundar," Paralympic Committee of India vice-president Gursharan Singh told NDTV. "Names of all athletes are announced multiple times for them to get to the competition area. We don't know what happened with him: was he concentrating too much on his warm-up that he missed out on the actual competition?"

Some other reports said Gurjar had a photographer taking his photographs, thought he was to go where the photographer was heading and lost his way. Three calls are made for the athletes and he went missing at the second call. By the time Gurjar turned up, he was two minutes past the third call and was disqualified.

"Both of us had travelled by the same bus to the venue," Jhajharia told the Times of India. "He moved to the other side of the field for warm-up. When our names were called, Rinku and I went in, but Sundar wasn't there. He tried to rush in, but at the time of the final call he was around 150m away."

Rajesh Tomar, a vice-president of the Asian Paralympic Committee, told the Hindu: "What I have learnt from other people is that he did not report on time, which I cannot digest because Sundar has been an able-bodied athlete and has been throwing 70m consistently." He said the coach, the manager and the chef-de-mission should be held responsible.

Gurjar, 20, had lost an arm in an accident in 2015. He won the best sportsman award at the National Championships this year.