Woman wrestler Vinesh Phogat will be nominated for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, the country's biggest sports award. This will be the second time in a row that the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) will forward Phogat's name for this honor. Talking to the media, a Sangh official said that Chairman Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh will put a final seal on the name and Vinesh's name may be recommended to the Sports Ministry on Monday. Vinesh, the bronze medalist of the 2019 World Wrestling Championship, is biggest hope at the Tokyo Olympics 2020. She has been performing consistently well for the last three years and during this time she won the Asian Games gold medal in Jakarta. She qualified for the Tokyo Olympics by winning a bronze medal at the World Championship in Noor Sultan in 2019. Earlier this year, she won a bronze medal in the Asian Championship held in New Delhi.
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Sakshi wants Arjuna Award after Khel Ratna: Sakshi Malik, who has received Khel Ratna on the other hand, wants Arjuna Award this time. However, wrestling mahasangh made it clear that she has received many applications, so nothing has been decided yet about the Arjuna Award and Dronacharya Award. In 2016 itself, this woman wrestler was given the Khel Ratna along with gymnast Deepa Karmakar and shooter Jeetu Rai for winning a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics. If the performance will be made the basis, then Sakshi is not worthy of the Arjuna Award in the current era. Recently she lost twice to young wrestler Sonam Malik, who stopped the top athlete from getting the cut for the Asian Olympic qualifier. The 2019 World Wrestling Championship silver medalist Deepak Poonia (86 kg), best wrestlers Rahul Aware, Sandeep Tomar and Ravi Dahiya have also sent names to the WFI. Earlier, the name of wetfilter Meera Bai Chanu has also been extended this year for the Arjuna Award by her sports organization, while she has also got the first Khel Ratna.
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Vinesh Phogat was jointly with Bajrang Punia last year, the Khel Ratna contender for the Wrestling Federation, but the Sports Ministry selected Para Athlete Deepa Malik with Bajrang Punia for the highest award. President Ramnath Kovind distributed the awards on the occasion of National Sports Day (birthday of hockey player Major Dhyanchand) on 29 August. It is worth noting that along with a medal and citation in the country's largest sports award, a prize money of Rs 7.5 lakh is also given to the player. The Sports Minister reviews the names sent by various sports associations and after assessing the performance, the Ministry can also give its suggestions to the Selection Committee.
