Double Olympic Games medallist Manu Bhaker and chess world champion Dommaraju Gukesh were among four winners of the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award announced by the sports ministry, which also named an unprecedented 17 para-athletes in the list of 32 Arjuna awardees to honour their success at the Paris Paralympics.
The other two Khel Ratna winners unveiled by the ministry on Thursday for the year 2024 were men’s hockey captain Harmanpreet Singh and para-athlete Praveen Kumar.
The awards will be conferred by President Droupadi Murmu at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on January 17.
The 22-year-old Manu won two medals in the 10m air pistol individual and 10m air pistol mixed team events.
The announcement comes a few days after reports that Manu had been ignored for the Khel Ratna as the award selection committee did not recommend her due to the absence of an application from her.
Dommaraju Gukesh in Chennai last month.
The shooter later admitted that there could have been a lapse on her part while filing the nomination. Once the procedural issues were sorted, there was no doubt that Manu would be among the awardees.
In the same Paris Games, Hamranpreet led the Indian hockey team to its second consecutive bronze medal.
The 18-year-old Gukesh, on the other hand, became the youngest-ever world champion while also helping the Indian team win a historic gold in the Chess Olympiad last year.
He promised his “best moves on 64 square and outside” in future. “Honourable Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji, I am truly grateful and feel humbled to receive the prestigious Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. Your words and guidance have always inspired me to strive for excellence and make the nation proud,” Gukesh wrote on X.
“I promise to continue delivering my best moves on 64 squares and outside of it. Thank you Hon. Sports Minister @mansukhmandviya Ji for your constant support.”
The fourth recipient, para high-jumper Praveen, was crowned the T64 champion in the Paris Paralympics. The T64 classification is for athletes who have one or both legs missing below the knee and rely on a prosthetic leg for
running.
The Khel ratna awardees receive a cash prize of Rs 25 lakh along with a citation and a medallion. The Arjuna awardees are given Rs 15 lakh as cash reward, a statuette of Arjuna and a citation.
Indian men's hockey captain Harmanpreet Singh with the bronze medal in New Delhi on August 10. File image
The athletes selected for this year’s Arjuna award include Paris Olympics bronze medal-winning group of wrestler Aman Sehrawat, shooters Swapnil Kusale and Sarabjot Singh and the men’s hockey team players Jarmanpreet Singh, Sukhjeet Singh, Sanjay and Abhishek.
The para-athletes outnumber the able-bodied ones in the list of Arjuna winners this time due to the magnificent Paris showing in which they returned with 29 medals, including seven gold and nine silver.
The ministry also cleared three coaches for the Dronacharya award in the regular category, including Olympic bronze-medallist Swapnil Kusale’s coach Deepali
Deshpande.
The Dronacharya award in the lifetime category will be conferred on former Dempo Sports Club and India football manager Armando Colaco and badminton coach S Muralidharan.
“I am on cloud nine. This is right up there,” Colaco told The Telegraph. Colaco guided Dempo to the national football and I-League combined five times. He remains the only coach to with the league five times.
“Now my players like Mahesh Gawli, Sameer Naik, Clifford Miranda have to carry this forward,” Colaco, now 71, added.