Paralympic gold medal winner Mariyappan Thangavelu is to be awarded the Khel Ratna at the virtual conference on August 29 and it will be unprecedented that 8 Para players including her are going to be awarded the National Sports Award this time.
Para-athlete Sandeep Chaudhary, para shooter Manish Narwal and para swimmer Suyash Jadhav have also joined the 27 Arjuna Award-winning players announced by the Sports Ministry on Friday. With this, the number of Para Olympians who received the Arjuna Award has reached thirty and since its inception in 1961, the total number of National Sports Award Winners from Para Sports has increased to 47. It is due to Para-Badminton Coach Gaurav Khanna that Indian Para-Badminton has touched heights in the last few years. This time the name of the coach has been added to the list for the Dronacharya Award along with 4 others.
J. Ranjith Kumar and Satya Prakash Tiwari have been selected to receive the Dhyan Chand Award. The President of the Indian Paralympic Committee, Deepa Malik, said in a release, "These awards are a big inspiration to move towards the Paralympic movement in India. These awards have come at the right time for our players and coaches to fulfil Paralympic dreams. Heartfelt congratulations to all the awardees."
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