Every Indian athlete and sportsperson give their sweat and blood for the honour of the country. the Indian Government gives recognition to their sacrifices with National Sports Awards. Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports declared the National Sports Awards 2021 today. The winners will receive their awards from the President of India in a specially organized function at the Darbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan. The award will be given on 13th November 2021(Saturday) at 1630 hrs.

National sports awards include 6 sporting awards in different categories. Khel Ratna Award, Arjuna Award, Dronacharya Award and 'Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar' are among them.

A sportsperson over a period of the previous four years will get the 'Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award'. The Government gives this award for the spectacular and most outstanding performance in the field of sports.

'Arjuna Award for outstanding performance in Sports and Games' is given for good performance over a period of the previous four years and showing qualities of leadership, sportsmanship and a sense of discipline.

'Dronacharya Award for outstanding coaches in Sports and Games' is the award for the coaches for their best contribution for grooming the sportspersons and taking them to the international level.

'Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar' is given to corporate entities (both in the private and public sector), sports control boards, NGOs including sports bodies at the state and national level who have played a visible role in the area of sports promotion and development. 

Government will award Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (MAKA) Trophy to the overall top performing university in inter-university tournaments

The selection committee received a large no. of nominations this year. And Selection Committee headed by Justice (Retd.) Mukundakam Sharma (former Judge of Supreme Court), consisting of members from eminent sportspersons and persons having experience in sports journalism & sports administrator etc consider them.

Based on a nitpick scrutiny and justified judgement the Government has decided to confer awards upon the following sportspersons, coaches and entities:

List of winners from National Sports Awards 2021

National Sports Award 2021 list pdf download link

The Indian gaming industry is developing every day, and experts predict a rapid increase in the number of players by the end of this year. If in 2021, the number of gambling people in India was about 420 million, then by the end of 2022, this figure should reach 510 million.

Extensive Indian gambling services such as RajBet, LeoVegas, Betway, and Ekbet, among the whole variety of online entertainment, especially highlight the popularity of fantasy games.

Read Also: Overview of the new bet365 sports betting and online casino app

About Fantasy Sports

Fantasy sports have origins in traditional sports like cricket and soccer, and more recently, fantasy has made its way to virtual games. In this unusual sport, participants gather into virtual teams whose prototypes compete in competitions, scoring points according to objective performance statistics. The teams with the most points win tournaments.

Fantasy sports increase interest in watching real matches. Players are more closely following fantasy team players, are wary of substitutions, and look forward to the game until the final whistle, regardless of the score. 

During a fantasy match, even unpopular players get favourites, emotional bonds are formed, and even low-status games become more interesting to watch.

Unsightly matches between underdogs can be the ultimate game for fantasy players as they determine the fate of the top prize of winning the fantasy tournament. You can play fantasy sports on different platforms in India and around the world as well. The total market of fantasy sports keeps on growing day by day in India with companies like Dream11 and MPL doing great job attracting the users with great interface and marketing strategies.

Rise of Fantasy Esports

The popularity of this unusual sport in the world is growing yearly: the number of participants in the official fantasy Premier League annually breaks records and exceeds millions. In addition, social networks and messengers have contributed to the emergence of local communities where teams and matches are actively discussed.

Fantasy esports is a rather new offshoot of traditional sports, but it has already won many fans not only in India but all over the world. The only difference between traditional and virtual fantasy sports is that the team is formed by e-sportsmen.

Participants can take part in various esports events, the most popular of which are

• The International Dota 2
• League of Legends World Championship 

These are the most famous competitions in which the best e-sportsmen from all over the world participate.

Fantasy competitions are not only a way to make money on bets but also to have fun and meet new people.

According to statistics, the market share of fantasy sports in India was $90 million in 2019, and the market has continued to grow. For example, on a global scale, the growth of this gambling sector is almost 4 billion dollars a year.

Fantasy Esports Rising in India

According to representatives of the largest Indian gambling service Ekbet, the impressive dynamics of the Fantasy Esports market development will continue to grow, and several factors contributed to this.

Factors driving the growth of the Fantasy Esports market in India:

• Covid 19 pandemic. People were locked in apartments without the ability to go outside, and many chose Fantasy Esports as their primary activity
• Increasing internet availability in India. When the mobile Internet became more accessible to the public, online platforms noted a great interest of users in Fantasy sports in general and in Fantasy Esports in particular.
• A growing interest in esports in India. More and more Internet users prefer Esport to traditional sports
• Real money. In addition to having fun, Fantasy Esports allows users to earn real money
• Social interaction. Fantasy Esports can expand the circle of acquaintances for people with the same interests united in virtual teams. The network has a huge number of thematic communities and forums for fans of this unusual sport

Obviously, with the growth of human and technical capabilities, the quality of fantasy Esports matches will only increase, and its popularity will grow rapidly. So there is no point in waiting. Join the fantasy teams on the Ekbet betting platform and win big money with the most progressive users in India.

Four players, including Manu Bhaker, who won two Olympic medals at the Paris Olympics 2024, and World Chess Championship winner Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh will be honored with the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award 2024. The National Sports Award 2024 has been announced by the Sports Ministry on Thursday.

Also Read: Beatrice Chebet becomes the first woman to run 5km under 14 minutes in Barcelona

Apart from Manu and Gukesh, Indian men's hockey team captain Harmanpreet Singh and Paralympian Praveen Kumar will also be given the Khel Ratna Award 2024. 

The award ceremony will take place on January 17, 2025, at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.

Khel Ratna Award 2024: Winners List

Manu won double medal in Paris Olympics

Manu Bhaker, 22, became the first player from independent India to win two medals in the same Olympics when she won bronze medals in the 10m air pistol individual and mixed team events at the Paris Games in August. On the basis of his two medals, India won a total of 6 medals in the Paris.

18 year old Gukesh is the new youngest world champion

18-year-old Indian Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju became the youngest world champion and was also instrumental in the Indian team's historic gold medal in the Chess Olympiad last year. He defeated defending champion Ding Liren of China in the final.

Gukesh has become the first player in the world to win the title at such a young age. Earlier in 1985, Russia's Garry Kasparov had won this title at the age of 22.

Harmanpreet-led India won bronze in Paris

Under the captaincy of Harmanpreet Singh, the Indian hockey team won a medal for the second consecutive Olympics. They won the bronze medal in the Paris Olympics and the gold medal in the Asian Games 2022. At the same time, Harmanpreet has won the title of Player of the Year at FIH Awards three times.

Praveen won Paralympic gold with a record in high jump

Para high jumper Praveen Kumar surprised everyone by winning the gold medal with an Asian record in the men's high jump at the Paris Paralympics. Praveen, who won a silver medal in the Tokyo Paralympics, gave the best performance of his career in the T64 event and registered his name in history by clearing a height of 2.08 meters.

India's badminton men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are selected for the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, the country's highest sports prize, Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports announced on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Shami alongside 25 other athletes win the Arjuna Award.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won at the Asian Games, Asian Championships, Swiss Open, Indonesia Open, and Korea Open and were runners-up at the China Masters. The pair also rose to No.1 in the BWF world rankings this year, the first for an Indian doubles pair. They are also the first badminton doubles pair to get the award.

Cricketer Md Shami, the highest wicket-taker in the ODI World Cup with 24 scalps, featured among 26 sportspersons, who will receive the Arjuna Awards for outstanding performance in sports and games in 2023.

After watching the first four games from the sidelines, Shami made an entry in India's fifth league stage match against New Zealand and finished with 24 wickets in seven matches with the best figures of 7/57.

The athletes were nominated for the awards by a government panel on December 13. The ministry also cleared five coaches for the Dronacharya award in the regular category and three in the lifetime category.

Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award 2023

1. Chirag Chandrashekhar Shetty (Badminton)

2. Rankireddy Satwik Sai Raj (Badminton)

Arjuna Awards

1. Ojas Pravin Deotale (Archery)

2. Aditi Gopichand Swami (Archery)

3. Sreeshankar M (Athletics)

4. Parul Chaudhary (Athletics)

5. Mohameed 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. Pukhrambam Sushila Chanu (Hockey)

13. Pawan Kumar (Kabbadi)

14. Ritu Negi (Kabbadi)

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 (Wrestling)

23. Naorem Roshibina Devi (Wushu)

24. Sheetal Devi (Para Archery)

25. Illuri Ajay Kumar Reddy (Blind Cricket)

26. Prachi Yadav (Para Canoeing)

Dronacharya Award for Outstanding Coaches

1. Lalit Kumar (Wrestling)

2. R B Ramesh (Chess)

3. Mahaveer Prasad Saini (Para Athletics)

4. Shivendra Singh (Hockey)

5. Ganesh Prabhakar Devrukhkar (Mallakhamb)

World No. 1 in both mixed and team debutant compound archer Jyothi Surekha Vennam has missed out on the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award this year despite a sensational performance at the Asian Games in Hangzhou. She has expressed disappointment at being ignored.

Also Read: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty nominated for the Khel Ratna Award; know full list of nominees

In the last 6 months, Jyothi has won a total of 13 international medals, which are - three golds (individual, team and mixed team) at the Asiad, one gold and silver at the World Championships, four gold and two bronzes at the World Cup and a gold and silver medal in the Asian Championships. She won seven World Championship medals and three Asiad gold medals. She has also won 53 International and 62 National medals by the age of 27.

Jyothi did her own assessment to arrive at the total number of points earned as per the Khel Ratna criteria. He told Times of India, 'I have a total of 148.74 marks which is the highest among all the applicants and much more than the marks given to Satwik and Chirag. A double gold medal at the Asiad earned me 30 points and a women's team gold from the mixed team earned me 22 and 20 points respectively.'

Jyothi further added, "I am deeply disappointed and disheartened over the snub. I believe my achievements speak for me. I want to know the reasons from the sports ministry, Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the awards selection committee as to why my name wasn't considered for the Khel Ratna despite logging the highest points,"

When TOI contacted ministry and SAI officials, they declined to comment on Jyothi's removal from the Khel Ratna Award list. "We wouldn't like to comment," a SAI's spokesperson said. Surekha said she would be approaching the court if she wasn't offered a proper explanation. "I have that option but that's the last one. First of all, I want to know the reasons why my name wasn't considered before approaching the court."

Also Read: AFI to close national camps after Paris Olympics

The ace badminton men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty has been recommended for the Khel Ratna Award by a 12-member awards selection committee.

India's star badminton men's doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have been nominated for the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. The government has taken this decision in view of their remarkable performance in the last two years.

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If Satwik-Chirag gets Khel Ratna Award, then they can become the first doubles pair to achieve this feat. This pair won the gold medal in the Asian Games this year, while last year they had also targeted gold in the Commonwealth Games. This pair was also successful in becoming number one for the first time this year. This is the reason why they have been nominated for Khel Ratna award.

The Sports Ministry has constituted a 12-member committee to decide on the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award and Arjuna Award this year. Retired Supreme Court Justice AM Khanwilkar will head the committee. Apart from him, there are six former international athletes in this committee. Hockey player Dhanraj Pillay, former paddler Kamlesh Mehta, ex-boxer Akhil Kumar, women shooter and current national coach Shuma Shirur, former cricketer Anjum Chopra, badminton player Tripti Murgunde and powerlifter Farman Pasha are also part of the panel

Full List of National Sports Awards Nominations

Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty (badminton).

Arjuna Award: Mohammed Shami (cricket), Ajay Reddy (blind cricket) Ojas Pravin Deotale, Aditi Gopichand Swami (archery), Sheetal Devi (para archery), Parul Chaudhary and M Sreeshankar (athletics), Mohd Hussamuddin (boxing), R Vaishali (chess), Divyakriti Singh and Anush Agarwalla (equestrian), Diksha Dagar (golf), Krishan Bahadur Pathak and Sushila Chanu (hockey), Pinky (lawn ball), Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (shooting), Antim Panghal (wrestling), Ayhika Mukherjee (table tennis).

Also Read: Long jumper Murali Sreeshankar wins Jimmy George Award for the best sportsperson of Kerala

Dhyan Chand Lifetime Award: Kavita (kabaddi), Manjusha Kanwar (badminton) Vineet Kumar Sharma (hockey).

Dronacharya Award: Ganesh Prabhakaran (mallakhamb), Mahavir Saini (para athletics), Lalit Kumar (wrestling), RB Ramesh (chess), Shivendra Singh (hockey).