Pacer Mohammed Shami has been nominated for this year’s Arjuna Award, while the men’s doubles badminton pair of Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were nominated for the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. The pair has had a remarkable year, reaching as many as six finals, winning five. They won at the Asian Games, Asian Championships, Swiss Open, Indonesia Open and Korea Open. They were runners-up at China Masters.
Nominees for Sports Awards:
Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award: Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty (badminton).
Arjuna Award: Mohammed Shami (cricket), Ajay Reddy (blind cricket) Ojas Pravin Deotale, Aditi Gopichand Swami (archery), Sheetal Devi (para archery), Parul Chaudhary and M Sreeshankar (athletics), Mohd Hussamuddin (boxing), R Vaishali (chess), Divyakriti Singh and Anush Agarwalla (equestrian), Diksha Dagar (golf), Krishan Bahadur Pathak and Sushila Chanu (hockey), Pinky (lawn ball), Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (shooting), Antim Panghal (wrestling), Ayhika Mukherjee (table tennis), Naorem Roshibina Devi (Wushu).
Dhyan Chand Lifetime Award: Kavita (kabaddi), Manjusha Kanwar (badminton) Vineet Kumar Sharma (hockey).
Dronacharya Award: Ganesh Prabhakaran (mallakhamb), Mahavir Saini (para athletics), Lalit Kumar (wrestling), RB Ramesh (chess), Shivendra Singh (hockey).