On the back of a historic Paralympics campaign, the National Sports Awards list this time comprises more para-athletes than able-bodied ones, with Paris Games champion Praveen Kumar among those chosen for the country’s highest sporting honour, the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award.
Recently-crowned chess world champion D Gukesh, Olympic double-medallist shooter Manu Bhaker and Harmanpreet Singh, who led the hockey team to its second successive podium finish, were other athletes to be awarded the Khel Ratna, the Sports Ministry said on Thursday.
Apart from four Khel Ratna, the ministry announced 32 Arjuna Awardees, 17 of them Paralympians.
The Khel Ratna winners receive a cash prize of Rs 25 lakh along with a citation and a medallion. The Arjuna awardees are given Rs 15 lakh as cash reward, a statuette of Arjuna and a citation. The award ceremony will be held in New Delhi on January 17.
India’s first Paralympic gold medallist Mulikant Petkar, who won the top honour in the 50m freestyle swimming event at the 1972 Heidelberg Paralympics, was awarded the Arjuna Award (Lifetime). The Army man’s inspiring tale of resurrecting himself as a para-athlete after being disabled due to bullet wounds sustained during the 1965 India-Pakistan war was recently turned into the biopic ‘Chandu Champion’.
Among the Khel Ratnas, Praveen was crowned the T64 champion at the Paris Paralympics. The T64 classification is for athletes who have one or both legs missing below the knee and rely on a prosthetic leg for running.
Manu made history in Paris by becoming the only Indian athlete since Independence — man or woman — to win two medals at a single Olympic Games.
Gukesh, 18, meanwhile, became the youngest-ever world champion in chess after defeating Ding Liren in Singapore last month. He had won the Candidates tournament earlier in 2024 to secure his spot at the World Chess Championship and also led the Indian chess team to a team gold at the Budapest Olympiad.
“Honourable Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji, I am truly grateful and feel humbled to receive the prestigious Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. Your words and guidance have always inspired me to strive for excellence and make the nation proud,” Gukesh wrote on X. “I promise to continue delivering my best moves on 64 squares and outside of it. Thank you Hon. Sports Minister @mansukhmandviya Ji for your constant support.”
There were also a few disgruntled athletes left out of the honours’ list. Paris Paralympics gold medallist archer Harvinder Singh, Yogesh Kathuniya and Sharad Kumar were not included in the Khel Ratna list. The omission of Asian Games gold medallist archer Jyothi Vennam, too, has been a talking point.
In a statement, the ministry said the names were announced based on the recommendations of a committee and after ‘due scrutiny’. “The awardees will receive their awards from the President of India at a specially-organised function at Rashtrapati Bhavan on 17th January, 2025 (Friday) at 1100 hours,” the sports ministry said in a press release.
Thirty-two athletes will receive the Arjuna Award. Leading that list are Tokyo medallists Aman Sehrawat, Swapnil Kusale and Sarabjot Singh and men’s hockey team members Jarmanpreet Singh, Sukhjeet Singh, Sanjay and Abhishek.
Kusale’s coach Deepali Deshpande was chosen for the Dronacharya Award while former India football coach Armando Colaco and badminton coach S Muralidharan will be conferred with the Dronacharya award in the lifetime category.
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