Sindhu, Sakshi To Get Top Sporting Honour, Four Recipients Of Khel Ratna For First Time In Indian History
It is time for India to celebrate the success of its Rio Olympic heroes. Where the state of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have started of mass public rallies and felicitations for Olympic silver medallist shuttler PV Sindhu, the state of Haryana and other agencies has lavished a lot of cash reward for bronze medallist wrestler Sakshi Malik.
PTI
Two days after closure of the Rio Olympics, India have also announced a decorated list of national award winners in the sports categories. Sindhu, Sakshi along with other finalists at Rio Games like gymnast Dipa Karmakar and Jitu Rai have been named for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, which is the highest sporting civilian honour for Indians.
It is also for the time in Indian history that four athletes will get a the prestigious sports award.
Dipa made final of the women's fault in gymnastics event, missed out on a podium spot by just .015 points. Jitu, on the other hand, made the finals of the 10m Air Pistol event and ended 12th in the 50m pistol event at Rio.
PTI
Dipa's coach Bishweshwar Nandi, who has been the force behind the success of the 23-year-old from Agartala, has been named for the Dronacharya award. India's athletics coach of SAI, Nagapuri Ramesh, Virat Kohli's cricket coach Raj Kumar Sharma, women's boxing coach Sagar Mal Dahiya have also been primed for the Dronacharya award. Swimming coach Pradeep Kumar and father cum coach of the Phogat sisters in wrestling, Mahabir Singh will get the Dronacharya award for lifetime achievement to sports.
The Arjuna Award list is very decorated with Rio Olympians Lalita Babar (300m steeplechase), Rani Rampal (hockey), Shiva Thapa (boxing), VR Raghunath (men's field hockey), Gurpreet Singh (shooting), Apurvi Chandela (shooting), Vinesh Phogat (wrestling), Shoumyajit Ghosh (table tennis) named in the award list.
AFP
Cricketer Ajinkya Rahane will also get the Arjuna award for excellent showing in all formats of the game for India, especially overseas. Others in Arjuna list include archer Rajat Chauhan, billiards player Sourav Kothari, goalkeeper Subrata Paul, wrestler Amit Kumar and para athletes Sandeep Singh Mann and Virender Singh (wrestling).
The Dhyan Chand award for lifetime contribution to sports development will go to Satti Geetha (athletics), Sylvanus Dung Dung and Rajendra Prasad Shelke (rowing).
