Lakshya Sen, Nikhat Zareen and others receive prestigious National Sports Awards

Indian athletes on Wednesday received prestigious awards for their contribution to the field of sports. Many star Indian athletes including Sharath Kamal Achanta, Lakshya Sen and Nikhat Zareen have received honours from President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan. 

For his outstanding performance in table tennis, Sharath Kamal Achanta has been honoured with Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, while Seema Punia (Athletics), Lakshya Sen (Badminton), Nikhat Zareen (Boxing), R Praggnanandhaa (Chess), Deep Grace Ekka (Hockey), Sushila Devi (Judo), Sagar Kailas Ovhalkar (Mallakhamb), Omprakash Mitharval (Shooting), Vikas Thakur (Weightlifting) and Manasi Girishchandra Joshi (Para Badminton) have been awarded the Arjuna awards for their outstanding performances. 

Notably, several coaches have also bagged the Dronacharya Award for guiding Indian players to greater heights. Shri Jiwanjot Singh Teja, Shri Mohammad Ali Qamar, Ms Suma Siddharth Shirur, and Shri Sujeet Maan have been honoured with the



Dronacharya Award. Also, several veteran stars including Shri Dinesh Jawahar Lad, Shri Bimal Prafulla Ghosh and Shri Raj Singh.

This time 25 players were given the Arjuna Award which includes athletes from badminton to boxing and other sports. Most of the athletes included in this list are those who performed brilliantly in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022. Apart from this, Rohit Sharma's coach Dinesh Lad was also honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Along with this, many veteran coaches were also honoured with the Dronacharya Award. All these awards were given by President Draupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Indian star players have been outstanding in the 2022 Birmingham Games. The likes of Sharath Kamal Achanta, Nikhat Zareen, Lakshya Sen, and Deep Grace Ekka have bagged medals in the Commonwealth Games in 2022. Notably, Sujeet Maan, who is Bajrang Punia's coach has also been honoured. Punia won the fourth World Championship medal under Maan recently. He won Bronze in Tokyo Olympics 2021.