India’s best-performing athletes were conferred with the national sports awards by President Droupadi Murmu in a regal ceremony on Tuesday where cricketer Mohammed Shami walked into rapturous applause at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
The awards ceremony, usually held on August 29 to commemorate the birth anniversary of hockey legend Major Dhyan Chand, was deferred because of the Hangzhou Asian Games from September 23 to October 8 last year.
Sporting bigwigs who were chosen for the Arjuna award this year were wrestler Antim Panghal, a former junior world champion and bronze-winner at the senior event last year, boxer Mohammad Hussamuddin (bronze-winner at last year’s world championship), and para archer Sheetal Devi.
List of Arjuna Award winners 2023
1) Ojas Pravin Deotale (archery)
2) Aditi Gopichand Swami (archery)
3) Murali Sreeshankar (athletics)
4) Parul Chaudhary (athletics)
5) Mohammad Hussamuddin (boxing)
6) R Vaishali (chess)
7) Mohammed Shami (cricket)
8) Anush Agarwalla (equestrian)
9) Divyakriti Singh (equestrian dressage)
10) Diksha Dagar (golf)
11) Krishan Bahadur Pathak (hockey)
12) Sushila Chanu (hockey)
13) Pawan Kumar (kabaddi)
14) Ritu Negi (kabaddi)
15) Nasreen (kho-kho)
16) Pinki (lawn bowls)
17) Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (shooting)
18) Esha Singh (shooting)
19) Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu (squash)
20) Ayhika Mukherjee (table tennis)
21) Sunil Kumar (wrestling)
22) Antim Panghal (wrestling)
23) Naorem Roshibina Devi (wushu)
24) Sheetal Devi (para archery)
25) Illuri Ajay Kumar Reddy (blind cricket)
26) Prachi Yadav (para canoeing)
