Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, August 29 2010:
The prestigious Dronacharya Award, the top recognition for coaches in the country has been conferred to boxing coach Leishangthem Ibomcha Singh and four others while Anita Chanu is among three sportspersons to be conferred with the Dhyan Chand award.
The national sports awards presentation ceremony was held at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi today.
Besides Ibomcha, Dronacharya Award was conferred on Ajay Kumar Bansal (hockey), AK Kutty (athletics), Captain Chandrup (wrestling) and Subhash B Aggarwal (billiards and snooker).
Along with Anita Chanu (weightlifting) Dhyan Chand Award, given for the life-time contribution to sports development, was also conferred on Satish Pillai (athletics) and Kuldeep Singh (wrestling).
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The award carries a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh, a statuette and a citation.
Badminton ace Saina Nehwal, whose phenomenal rise was highlighted by three top-flight international titles recently, was conferred the coveted Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award at a glittering ceremony on Sunday.
Saina's achievements in the past one year made her an automatic choice for the prestigious award, the highest sporting honour in the country.
The Hyderabadi shuttler though did not collect the award, which consists of a medal, citation and cash prize of Rs 7.5 lakh, personally as she is yet to return from Paris where she lost in the quarterfinals of the World Championships.
An Arjuna awardee last year, Saina rose to number two in world rankings and also completed a hattrick of international titles, including back-to-back Super Series victories in Singapore and Indonesia in June.
The Arjuna and Dronacharya awardees got statuettes, citations and cash prize of Rs 5 lakh each.
Former Indian hockey skipper Sandeep Singh and women's cricket captain Jhulan Goswami were among the 15 sportspersons who received the Arjuna Award from President Pratibha Patil at Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Boxer Dinesh Kumar, swimmer Rehan Poncha, world's second youngest Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi and Olympian wrestler Rajiv Tomar also received the Arjuna award for their achievements in the last one year.
Women hockey player Jasjeet Kaur Handa also missed the ceremony as she is now in Argentina for the FIH World Cup.
No male cricketer got the honour, while Deepak Mondal was the lone footballer and Rajeev Tomar was the lone wrestler to get Arjuna award.
Others to get the award were Sanjeev Rajput (shooting), Kapil Dev (volleyball), Rehan Poncha (swimming), Dinesh Kumar (kabaddi), Rajesh Chaudhary (yachting) and Jagseer Singh (para-Olympian).