India’s star badminton men’s doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty has been nominated for the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award while pace sensation Mohammed Shami, archers Ojas Pravin Deotale and Aditi Gopichand Swami, wrestler Antim Panghal are among stars nominated for the Arjuna Award.
Khel Ratna is the country’s highest sporting honour given annually by the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. The nominated stars receive their awards from the President of India.
As per Olympics.com, so far, five shuttlers have been given the Khel Ratna award so far: Pullela Gopichand (2001), Saina Nehwal (2010), PV Sindhu (2016), Pramod Bhagat (2021) and Krishna Nagar (2021).
Satwiksairaj and Chirag, popularly known as ‘Sat-Chi’ have secured three Badminton World Federation (BWF) titles this year, the Swiss Open, the Indonesia Open and the Korea Open. They also won India’s historic first-ever badminton gold at the Asian Games in Hangzhou and also the Asian Championships gold in April.
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The duo in October became the first doubles pair in Indian badminton history to be ranked at world number one in BWF rankings. Last year, the Indian shuttlers were a part of the country’s historic, game-changing Thomas Cup win. They also bagged medals at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham (gold) and World Championships (bronze).
Table tennis legend Achanta Sharath Kamal got the Khel Ratna award last year. Olympic gold medalist and World Champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra though did not receive the nomination as he already won the top prize in 2021.
17 players were selected for the Arjuna Awards, including Shami, who ended as the leading wicket-taker in the recently-concluded ICC Cricket World Cup in India with 24 scalps and broke several records. Aditi Swami, steeplechaser Parul Chaudhary, shooter Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and U20 World Champion wrestler Antim Panghal have been nominated as well.
RB Ramesh, the coach of India’s young chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa is the major nominee of Dronacharya Award, a sporting honour for coaches.
National Sports Awards 2023: Players nominated
Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award: Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty (badminton)
Arjuna Award: Mohammed Shami (cricket), Ajay Reddy (blind cricket) Ojas Pravin Deotale (archery), Aditi Gopichand Swami (archery), Sheetal Devi (para archery), Parul Chaudhary and Murali Sreeshankar (athletics), Mohd Hussamuddin (boxing), R Vaishali (chess), Divyakriti Singh and Anush Agarwalla (equestrian), Diksha Dagar (golf), Krishan Bahadur Pathak (hockey), Sushila Chanu (hockey), Pinky (lawn ball), Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (shooting), Antim Panghal (wrestling), Ayhika Mukherjee (table tennis)
Dronacharya Award: Ganesh Prabhakaran (mallakhamb), Mahavir Saini (para athletics), Lalit Kumar (wrestling), RB Ramesh (chess), Shivendra Singh (hockey)
Dhyan Chand Lifetime Award: Kavita (kabaddi), Manjusha Kanwar (badminton) Vineet Kumar Sharma (hockey).Als
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Source: ANI