The Boxing Federation of India on Monday nominated world silver medallist Amit Panghal and the seasoned Vikas Krishan for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, picking only Olympic-bound names as its nominees for the annual honours.
Panghal (52kg), also an Asian Games champion, has not won any national sports award. He has been nominated for the Arjuna Award for the past three years but has not been considered by the selection committee because of a 2012 “inadvertent” dope offence. “He is allowed to compete for the country and his medals are celebrated. He deserves to be honoured as well,” said BFI Executive Director R K Sacheti.
Last year, the BFI had vowed to keep nominating Panghal till the time his name was considered. The doping violation took place when Panghal was undergoing treatment for chicken pox in his youth category days.
Commonwealth and Asian Games gold medallist Krishan (69kg) won the Arjuna Award in 2012.
The BFI has nominated the world bronze-winning trio of Lovlina Borgohain (69kg), Simranjit Kaur (64kg) and Manish Kaushik (63kg) for the Arjuna Award.
For its nominations for the Dronacharya Award, the BFI has finalised the names of national women’s coach Mohammed Ali Qamar and assistant coach Chhote Lal Yadav. Qamar, an Arjuna awardee, was India’s first Commonwealth Games gold-medallist in boxing and has been in charge of the women’s camp for over a year now. This was after serving as an assistant coach for one year. Yadav, meanwhile, is also closely associated with six-time world champion M. C. Mary Kom.
The last day for filing nominations is Wednesday.
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