At an award ceremony recently, the President Dr. Pranab Mukherjee presented the Arjun Awards, Dhyan Chand Awards and the highest sporting honor in the country, the Khel Ratan (for the sporting jewels of the country). Four Indian sportspersons, three women among those, received the Khel Ratna from the President on 29 August 2016.
The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna were instituted and first awarded in the years 1991-92 and the first recipient of the award was chess player Vishwanathan Anand. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 7.5 lakhs and a total of 32 have been awarded in all.
There have been years when were no awards were presented; as in the years 2008 and 2014 when no Khel Ratna awardees were announced. However, this year four Indian players all recently returned from the summer Olympics in Rio, were honoured with the Khel Ratna.
For her silver medal in badminton at the Rio Olympics and other sporting achievements, shuttler P V Sindhu received a Khel Ratna award. The Pullela Gopichand protégé upset a higher ranking player in the semi finals to reach the final and then lost to the current world No 1 from Spain, Carolina Marin who restricted her to a silver. Read more about India’s youngest individual medal winner and first Indian woman to win silver at the Olympics, P V Sindhu here.
The spunky Haryana girl was the first to win a medal and to end the country's medal drought in Rio. Her bronze medal brought cheer to millions and inspired many more Indian women to get involved in wrestling. Read more about her journey from Rohtak to Rio.
She was the first Indian woman to represent the nation in gymnastics at the Olympics. Not only that, she missed her medal by a whisker in a sport that is considered highly dangerous; the Produnova Vault. Read more about Dipa Karmarkar and her efforts at the Olympics.
Though he had been one of the country’s medal hopes, he failed to actually win a medal. However for his stellar performances in other arenas, the Naib Subedar of 11 Gorkha Rifles of the Indian army received his award.
While accolades, awards and prizes of all sorts are showered on the players that did well, the Indian women's hockey team had to endure sitting on the floor of the train when their tickets were not confirmed for the Dhanbad Allepey Express. Everyone acknowledges that not enough is done to promote sport in India and that we don’t value our sportspersons unless they do something extraordinary. This is but another example.
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