paralympic rower jako perini accused of cheating stripped of bronze medal due to one small mistake paralympic rower jao perini has been accused of cheating and stripped of his bronze medal at the Paris 2024 games allegedly due to one small and easily avoidable mistake the Italian athlete 28 allegedly used an illegal device during the pr one men's single skulls event which is against the rules and disqualified him from the event what was the device according to officials perini forgot to remove his cell phone from his boat ahead of the race costing him his victory in the final of the pr1 m1x the iea pr 1mx was found to be using Communications equipment during the race in breach of rule 28 and appendix R2 by law to rule 28 World rowing said in a statement via Instagram on Sunday September 1st as a result the crew has been excluded from the event and will be ranked last in response the the Italian rowing Federation released a statement which was translated to English after a historic and highly competitive competition ending with an exciting third place and a bronze medal while everyone was celebrating the achievement the jury was excluded from the paralympic podium of the pr one single for this reason the statement read before going on to explain that perini neglected to remove his phone from his boat ahead of the race the Federation is proceeding with an official claim providing the records of perini's phone who is solely responsible for having forgotten it on the boat the statement concluded we will shortly provide news of the outcome of the appeal in a separate statement to their website translated to English the Italian rowing Federation noted that the judge noticed the presence of the smartphone after the race the organization further explained that Pini had inadvertently forgotten to put down the exclusion occurred based on the regulation that prohibits the presence on the boat of instruments capable of communicating with the outside this statement continued the Italian rowing Federation promptly presented an appeal that was rejected by the board of jury and is now preparing to challenge the decision by arguing to the Executive Board of world rowing following the events Australian rower Eric Hy moved to third place earning the bronze medal Roman poliansky of Ukraine took home the silver medal while team Great Britain's Benjamin Pritchard won Gold there was a situation that happened Hy told nine World rowing and paralympic officials saw it and then made the decision to disqualify Pini and I was lucky enough to come away with the bronze he continued that's all I can say really it's the joys of sport There are rules and as athletes we stick to them