Stars shine on Sports Day
Honoured for achievements in online ceremony
New Delhi, Aug. 29: India’s sporting heroes were bestowed the annual national awards in an unparalleled online ceremony amid the Covid-19 pandemic during which athletes logged in from multiple cities to be honoured by President Ram Nath Kovind.
This year a whopping 74 were picked for the national honours, including an unprecedented five Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratnas and 27 Arjuna awardees. Of these, 60 attended the virtual ceremony conducted across 11 Sports Authority of India (SAI) centres in various cities.
Cricketers Rohit Sharma (Khel Ratna) and Ishant Sharma (Arjuna) missed the ceremony due to their IPL commitments in the UAE, while star wrestler Vinesh Phogat (Khel Ratna) and badminton player Satwiksairaj Rankireddy (Arjuna) had to pull out of the ceremony after testing positive for the dreaded virus.
The other three Khel Ratna winners — TT player Manika Batra, Paralympic gold-medallist Mariyappan Thangavelu and women’s hockey captain Rani Rampal — attended the ceremony.
While Batra logged in from Pune, Thangavelu and Rampal joined from the Bengaluru SAI centre.
President Kovind applauded as names of the attending awardees were called out and their achievements cited as is the convention.
“This is the first awards ceremony in Covid-19 times during which the President has participated,” Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju said.
The athletes can look forward to enhanced cash awards this year. The prize money for the Khel Ratna was increased to `25 lakh from the previous amount of `7.5 lakh this morning.
Arjuna awardees, 22 of who attended the ceremony, were given `15 lakh, which is `10 lakh more than the previous sum.
The Dhronacharya (Lifetime) awardees, who were earlier given `5 lakh, were awarded `15 lakh, while the regular Dhronacharya came with Rs `lakh instead of `5 lakh per awardee.
Dhyanchand Awardees were given `10 lakh instead of `5 lakh.
The strict Covid-19 protocol meant that for the first time in 44 years’ history of the awards, the winners, guests and dignitaries did not gather at the Durbar Hall. The top Arjuna awardees this year included Dutee Chand, Deepti Sharma, Aditi Ashok and Akashdeep Singh.
The Dronacharya award in the life-time category was bestowed on eight coaches, the prominent among them being Dharmendra Tiwary (archery), Naresh Kumar (tennis), Shiv Singh (boxing) and Romesh Pathania (hockey).
The prize money for the Khel Ratna was increased to
` 25 lakh from the previous amount of
` 7.5 lakh. Arjuna awardees were given
` 15 lakh, which is
` 10 lakh more than the previous sum.