New Delhi: Sports Ministry Tuesday decided against bestowing the coveted Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award on any athlete for the year 2025, while unveiling a significantly pruned list of 17 Arjuna awardees after an unprecedented re-evaluation of the selection panel’s recommendations made more than six months ago.
Hockey star Hardik Singh was considered for the country’s highest sporting honour by the selection panel headed by former Supreme Court Judge Arun Kumar Mishra but eventually fell out of contention. The last time that the country did not have a Khel Ratna was the year 2014.
World Cup-winning chess player Divya Deshmukh, decathlete and high jumper Tejaswin Shankar and shuttler Gayatri Gopichand were among the 17 sportspersons named for the Arjuna Award on Tuesday.
Also on the Arjuna Award list were Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi, Gayatri Gopichand’s women’s doubles partner Treesa Jolly, Glasgow Commonwealth Games silver-medallist boxer Narender Berwal (+92kg), and young deaf rifle shooter Dhanush Srikanth.
The selection committee this year had recommended 24 names for the Arjuna Award but the ministry approved only 17.
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The awards were announced following massive delay, with the ministry announcing a re-evaluation process to ensure only worthy names were honoured to “preserve the integrity of the awards.”
The 19-year-old Deshmukh is the first Indian woman to win the World Cup. Vidit Gujrathi was part of the gold-winning Indian team at the 2024 Chess Olympiad.
Tejaswin Shankar, who won a historic decathlon silver medal in the Asian Games in 2023 and followed it up with a second-place finish in the Asian Championships last year, recently won a pathbreaking bronze in the Commonwealth Games despite battling a knee problem.
He was among the athletes who criticised the delay in announcing the awards, calling it disrespectful to athletes.
In 2024, a record 32 athletes were conferred the Arjuna Award, including 17 from para-sports. This time, only two names from para-sports made the final cut.
Para club thrower Ekta Bhyan, who won gold in the 2024 Para World Championships, and shooter Rudransh Khandelwal, who is a 2024 Para World Cup gold medallist.
Ekta also won a silver in the world championships held last year in Delhi.
The list, however, does not feature any cricketer, which has been the case since pacer Mohammed Shami received the honour in 2023.
I Arumainayagam, who was a member of the 1962 Asian Games gold-winning football team, was sole winner of the Arjuna Award for ‘Lifetime Achievement’.
The ministry has named three Dronacharya awardees.
Boxing coach Chhote Lal Yadav, who was a part of the women’s national camp as well as the support staff of the legendary M C Mary Kom, is the most prominent name in the short list.
For the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ honour in coaching, Dharmedra Yadav, who coaches the men’s national squad, and wrestling coach Virender Kumar have been named.
The Khel Ratna, which is the country’s highest sporting honour, comes with a medallion, a citation and a cash prize of Rs 25 lakh, while the Arjuna award makes the winner richer by Rs 15 lakh.
Last year, the Khel Ratna was bestowed on four athletes — world champion chess player D Gukesh, men’s hockey captain Harmanpreet Singh, para-athlete Praveen Kumar and shooter Manu Bhaker.
The awards were traditionally presented August 29 every year to commemorate the National Sports Day, which is also the birth anniversary of one of India’s greatest sportspersons — hockey wizard Major Dhyan Chand.
However, after the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when the ceremony was conducted virtually due to health protocols, the date has not remained consistent.
More than once, the ceremony has been pushed a couple of months after August 29 to accommodate multi-sport events’ performances. The latest that it was held was last year January 17.
But the announcement of the 2025 awardees after more than half of 2026 has passed marks the biggest delay since the inception of the awards in 1991.
This year, the award selection featured, among others, Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Vice President Gagan Narang, former badminton player Aparna Popat and former hockey player M M Somaya.
Arjuna Awards: Tejaswin Shankar (Athletics), Priyanka Goswami (Athletics), Narender (Boxing), Vidit Gujrathi (Chess), Divya Deshmukh (Chess), Dhanush Srikanth (Deaf Shooting), Rajkumar Pal (Hockey), Surjeet (Kabaddi), Rudransh Khandelwal (Para-Shooting), Ekta Bhyan (Para-athletics), Arvind Singh (Rowing), Akhil Sheoran (Shooting), Treesa Jolly (Badminton), Gayatri Gopichand (Badminton), Lalremsiami (Hockey), Muhammed Ajmal (Athletics), Pooja (Kabaddi).
Arjuna Awards (Lifetime): Shri I Arumainayagam (Football)
Dronacharya Award: Parveer Singh, Chhote Lal Yadav, Neha Chavan
Dronacharya Award (Lifetime): Dharmendra Yadav, Virender Kumar.
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