MADIKERI / BENGALURU: Hockey player SV Sunil and ace shooter Prakash Nanjappa from the State are all set to receive the coveted Arjuna Award, announced on Tuesday. A dependable forward in the national team, Sunil has won gold medal in the Asian Games, silver in Champions Trophy and Commonwealth Games, and a bronze in the World League. Sharp shooter Nanjappa, battling Bell’s palsy, has done wonders at a late age.
He has won a silver medal in Commonwealth Games, and bronze in ISSF World Championship and Asian Games . Somwarpet Vitalacharya Sunil , born in 1989 , made his senior international debut in the 2007 Asia Cup in Chennai, which India won. He was also a part of the team that won silver at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in 2008. The 2011 Champion’s Challenge was an early high point in his career in which he scored four goals, the most by an Indian forward. Sunil is regarded as one of the fastest players and fittest custodians of the Indian national hockey team mostly making his runs from right and left and plays as a winger.
He had the form of his career during Champions Trophy 2016 where the Indian team won silver for the first time even as they went down to Australia 3-1 in penalties. During Hockey India League, he was bought by Punjab Warriors for $ 42,000 . Sunil told Express on Tuesday that he was delighted and thanked his coaches,friends and well-wishers .
P rakash Nanjappa, 41-year-old shooter who competes in the 10 metre air pistol and 50 metre pistol events , was the only Indian to win a medal in the 2013 ISSF World Cup, when he won bronze in 10 metre air pistol event in Changwon, South Korea. In the same event, he won the silver medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
He also overcame a personal struggle when he was struck by facial paralysis but bounced back to win more medals. A late-blooming shooter, Prakash worked as a software engineer in Canada till 2009. It was only after his father P N Papanna, a national-level shooter , advised him to take up shooting as a career that he moved back to India and took up the sport agin.