India's badminton stars Chirag Shetty and Rankireddy Satwik Sai Raj won the Major Dhyan Khel Ratna award. Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports announced the National Sports Awards 2023 today. Based on the recommendations of the Committee and after due scrutiny, the government decided to confer awards upon sportspersons, coaches and entities. The awardees will receive their awards from the President of India at a specially organised function at Rashtrapati Bhavan on January 9, 2024 (Tuesday) at 11 am IST.
For the unversed, Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award is given to sportspersons with spectacular and most outstanding performance in the field of sports over the course of last four years. Vishwanathan Anand was the first winner of this award in 1991-92 for his exceptional performance in Chess. Among cricketers, Sachin Tendulkar was the first player to be conferred with the Khel Ratna while MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Mithali Raj have been the others to win it.
Coming back to Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, the duo rose to the top of the BWF rankings earlier this year in October after winning the gold medal at the Asian Games in Hangzhou. The duo has been exceptional since 2022 winning five BWF World tour titles, including the Indian Open, French Open, Swiss Open, Indonesia Open, and Korea Open.
Full list of winners of Major Dhyan Khel Ratna award:
- Sharath Kamal - Table tennis
- Manpreet Singh - Hockey
- Sunil Chhetri - Football
- Mithali Raj - Cricket
- Manish Narwal - Paralympic shooting
- Krishna Nagar - Para-badminton
- Pramod Bhagat - Para-badminton
- Sumit Antil - Para-athletics
- Avani Lekhara - Paralympic shooting
- PR Sreejesh - Hockey
- Lovlina Borgohain - Boxing
- Ravi Kumar Dahiya - Freestyle wrestling
- Neeraj Chopra - Athletics
- Rani Rampal - Hockey
- Rohit Sharma - Cricket
- Mariyappan Thangavelu - Paralympic high jump
- Manika Batra - Table tennis
- Vinesh Phogat - Freestyle wrestling
- Bajrang Punia - Freestyle wrestling
- Deepa Malik - Paralympic (shot put, javelin, others)
- Virat Kohli - Cricket
- Saikhom Mirabai Chanu - Weightlifting
- Sardara Singh - Hockey
- Devendra Jhajharia - Paralympic javelin
- PV Sindhu - Badminton
- Sakshi Malik - Freestyle wrestling
- Jitu Rai - Shooting
- Dipa Karmakar - Gymnastics
- Sania Mirza - Tennis
- Ronjan Sodhi - Shooting
- Yogeshwar Dutt - Freestyle wrestling
- Vijay Kumar - Shooting
- Gagan Narang - Shooting
- Saina Nehwal - Badminton
- Sushil Kumar - Freestyle wrestling
- Vijender Singh - Boxing
- Mary Kom - Boxing
- Mahendra Singh Dhoni - Cricket
- Manavjit Singh Sandhu - Shooting
- Pankaj Advani - Billiards and Snooker
- Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore - Shooting
- Anju Bobby George - Athletics
- Anjali Bhagwat - Shooting
- KM Beenamol - Athletics
- Abhinav Bindra - Shooting
- Pullela Gopichand - Badminton
- Dhanraj Pillay - Hockey
- Jyotirmoyee Sikdar - Athletics
- Sachin Tendulkar - Cricket
- Leander Paes - Tennis
- Nameirakpam Kunjarani - Weightlifting
- Karnam Malleswari - Weightlifting
- Pushpendra Kumar Garg - Yachting (Team event)
- Homi Motivala - Yachting (Team event)
- Geet Sethi - Billiards
- Viswanathan Anand - Chess
