New Delhi: Ace Para badminton player from Odisha, Pramod Bhagat, was on Saturday nominated for the Arjuna Award along with 18 others sports persons.
The awards selection committee headed by Justice (Retd) Mukundakam Sharma nominated celebrated para-athlete Deepa Malik for the country’s highest sporting honour the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award along with Asian and Commonwealth Games champion wrestler Bajrang Punia.
The name of 48-year-old Deepa, who won a silver in the shot put F53 category in the 2016 Rio Paralympics, was added for the Khel Ratna by a 12-member selection committee on the second day of the two-day meeting.
Deepa became the first Indian female athlete to win a Paralympics medal, when she won a silver at the 2016 Games.
The panel also nominated three names for the Dronacharya Award, including former badminton star Vimal Kumar, and three for the Dronacharya Award (lifetime category).
Here’s the complete list of recommendations forwarded by the selection committee for this year’s sporting awards.
RAJIV GANDHI KHEL RATNA AWARD
Bajrang Punia – Wrestling
Deepa Malik – Para Athletics
DRONACHARYA AWARD
Regular Category
Coach: Vimal Kumar – Badminton, Sandeep Gupta – Table tennis, Mohinder Singh Dhillon – Athletics
Life-Time Category
Coach : Merzban Patel – Hockey, Rambir Singh Khokhar – Kabaddi, Sanjay Bhardwaj – Cricket
ARJUNA AWARD
Tajinderpal Singh Toor – Athletics, Mohammed Anas Yahiya – Athletics, S. Bhaskaran – Body Building, Sonia Lather – Boxing, Ravindra Jadeja – Cricket, Chinglensana Singh Kangujam – Hockey, Ajay Thakur – Kabaddi, Gaurav Singh Gill – Motor Sports, Pramod Bhagat Para Sports (Badminton), Anjum Moudgil – Shooting, Harmeet Rajul Desai – Table Tennis, Pooja Dhanda – Wrestling, Fouaad Mirza – Equestrian, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu – Football, Poonam Yadav – Cricket, Swapna Barman – Athletics, Sundar Singh Gurjar – Para Sports (Athletics), Bhamidipati Sai Praneeth – Badminton, Simran Singh Shergill – Polo
DHYANCHAND AWARD
Manuel Fredricks – Hockey, Arup Basak – Table Tennis, Manoj Kumar – Wrestling, Nitten Kirrtane – Tennis and Lalremsanga – Archery.
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