No Arjuna for past Khel Ratnas Mirabai Chanu and Sakshi Malik

Here's the final list of recipient of the 2020 Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, the Dhronacharya Award and the Arjuna Award.

Mirabai Chanu's name has been removed from this year's final list of Arjuna Award winners.

The Sports Ministry on Friday decided against bestowing the Arjuna Award on former Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna winners Sakshi Malik and Mirabai Chanu, pruning the list to 27 but accepted an unprecedented five recommendations for the country’s highest sporting honour this year.

Last week, the Justice (retd) Mukundakam Sharma-led selection committee had recommended 29 names for the Arjuna Award to the Sports Ministry.

The list also included Rio Olympics bronze medal-winning wrestler Sakshi and 2017 weightlifting world champion Mirabai, but the decision of bestowing the Arjuna on them was left to the discretion of Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju.

This was due to the fact that they had already won the Khel Ratna, the country’s highest sporting honour.

The decision to include their names raised eyebrows and attracted criticism.

The five Khel Ratna winners for this year would be cricketer Rohit Sharma, wrestler Vinesh Phogat, Paralympic gold-winner Mariyappan Thangavelu, Table Tennis player Manika Batra and women’s hockey team captain Rani Rampal, the ministry confirmed in a formal press release.

In a first, the awards will be held virtually on August 29, the National Sports Day, instead of the Rashtrapati Bhavan this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here are the full lists of award winners.

 

RAJIV GANDHI KHEL RATNA AWARD

Name of the Sportsperson	Discipline
Rohit Sharma	Cricket
Mariyappan T.	Para Athletics
Manika Batra	Table Tennis
Vinesh Poghat	Wrestling
Rani Rampal	Hockey

 

 

DRONACHARYA AWARD (Life- Time Category)

Name of the Coach	Discipline
Dharmendra Tiwary	Archery
Purushotham Rai	Athletics
Shiv Singh	Boxing
Romesh Pathania	Hockey
Krishan Kumar Hooda	Kabaddi
Vijay Bhalchandra Munishwar	Para Powerlifting
Naresh Kumar	Tennis
Om Parkash Dahiya	Wrestling

 

DRONACHARYA AWARD (Regular Category)

Name of the Coach	Discipline
Jude Felix Sebastian	Hockey
Yogesh Malviya	Mallakhamb
Jaspal Rana	Shooting
Kuldeep Kumar Handoo	Wushu
Gaurav Khanna	Para Badminton

 

ARJUNA AWARD

Name of the Sportsperson (Shri)	Discipline
Atanu Das	Archery
Dutee Chand	Athletics
Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy	Badminton
Chirag Chandrasekhar Shetty	Badminton
Vishesh Bhriguvanshi	Basketball
Subedar Manish Kaushik	Boxing
Lovlina Borgohain	Boxing
Ishant Sharma	Cricket
Deepti Sharma	Cricket
Sawant Ajay Anant	Equestrian
Sandesh Jhingan	Football
Aditi Ashok	Golf
Akashdeep Singh	Hockey
Deepika	Hockey
Deepak	Kabaddi
Kale Sarika Sudhakar	Kho Kho
Dattu Baban Bhokanal	Rowing
Manu Bhaker	Shooting
Saurabh Chaudhary	Shooting
Madhurika Suhas Patkar	Table Tennis
Divij Sharan	Tennis
Shiva Keshavan	Winter Sports
Divya Kakran	Wrestling
Rahul Aware	Wrestling
Suyash Narayan Jadhav	Para Swimming
Sandeep	Para Athletics
Manish Narwal	Para Shooting