CHENNAI : The i’s have been dotted and the t’s have been crossed as the selection committee has nominated 20 elite sportspersons for the Arjuna award and two athletes (Virat Kohli and Mirabai Chanu) for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award. The interesting thing is that most of the names have won a medal of some colour at the Commonwealth Games or the Asian Games.
While Kohli and Chanu winning the country’s highest sporting honour doesn’t come as a surprise — even before the latter sizzled at the Commonwealth Games, she was a world champion — the one common strand among Arjuna award recommendations is how they have cornered glory at the last two multi-discipline events. Out of the 20 athletes, 14 medalled at Gold Coast or Jakarta.
What is even more impressive is that three (Neeraj Chopra, G Sathiyan and Manika Batra) of the 13 won medals in Australia as well as Indonesia. Also, Jinson Johnson (two), Hima Das (three), N Sikki Reddy (two), Manika Batra and Sathiyan (three each) won multiple medals in one event. The nominated names will still have to be approved by the Sports Ministry.
The gongs for their recent efforts also vindicated the sports ministry’s decision to extend the deadline for filing nominations. This year’s original deadline, as reported by Express, was April 27 but the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) pushed it back to September 12 to accommodate Asiad and CWG medallists.
“This was done to accommodate athletes who have competed at the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games,” sports secretary Rahul Bhatnagar had told this newspaper then. This is going to be the norm going ahead in AG/CWG-years and a few athletes are already voicing approval. “I was never expecting to be among the names to be recommended,” Johnson said. “To have three names from athletics for the Arjuna in a single year is almost unheard of. I had expected Neeraj to be the lucky one this time around, so I was speechless when I had heard my name on the news. The decision to extend the deadline for the recommendation is a good move.”
The difference between now and 2014 is stark. The 2014 Arjuna awardees were confirmed by the government on August 21, a full month before the Asian Games began in Incheon. The 25-year-old Sathiyan, who benefited thanks to the initiative, also backed it.
“This was a long-held dream and I am so happy to have achieved it. It’s really great to see that they have given awards to athletes who have done well this year. This gives us added motivation.” Boxer Amit Panghal, who returned with gold from Jakarta, missed out because of a doping violation in his past. The 22-year-old had tested positive for an anabolic steroid in 2012. The awards function will be held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on September 25.
LAURELS LIST
Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna
Virat Kohli (cricket), Mirabai Chanu (weightlifting).
Dronacharya (regular)
Chemanda Kutappa (boxing), Vijay Sharma (weightlifting), Srinivasa Rao (table tennis), Shiv Singh Pannu (athletics), Jiwanjot Singh Teja (archery).
Dronacharya (lifetime)
Clarence Lobo (hockey), Tarak Sinha (cricket), Jiwan Kumar Singh (judo), VR Beedu (athletics).
Dhyan Chand
Bharat Chettri (hockey), Satya Dev Prasad (archery), Dadu Chowgule (wrestling), Bobby Aloysius (athletics).
Arjuna
Neeraj Chopra, Jinson Johnson, Hima Das (all athletics), N Sikki Reddy (badminton), Satish Kumar (boxing), Smriti Mandhana (cricket), Shubhankar Sharma (golf), Manpreet Singh, Savita (both hockey), Ravi Rathore (polo), Rahi Sarnobat, Ankur Mittal, Shreyashi Singh (all shooting), Manika Batra, G Sathiyan (both TT), Rohan Bopanna (tennis), Sumit (wrestling), Pooja Kadian (wushu), Ankur Dhama (para athletics), Manoj Sarkar (para badminton).