Yogeshwar, Vijay Kumar recommended for Khel Ratna

New Delhi - London Olympic medallists Yogeshwar Dutt and Vijay Kumar were Saturday recommended for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award while cricketer Yuvraj Singh will be receiving the Arjuna award.

Vijay won a silver medal in 25m pistol shooting while Yogeshwar grabbed the bronze in wrestling.

There was no official confirmation of the list of Khel Ratna awardees but obviously some of the names in the list have been leaked to some section of the media.

When contacted, spokesman of the Sports Ministry Rajesh Malhotra told IANS through SMS that “The list is not out yet, it will take 2/3 days to get the approval of the minister”.

The other London Olympics medallists Sushil Kumar (silver in wrestling), Mary Kom (bronze in boxing), Gagan Narang (bronze, shooting) and Saina Nehwal (bronze, badminton), have already received the prestigious award.

Yuvraj, who braved a troubled last year and recovered from a rare germ cell cancer after undergoing chemotheraphy, was included in the Indian squad for the Twenty20 World Cup.

“Honoured to get the Arjuna award.” tweeted Yuvraj.

Among others are shuttler Parupalli Kashyap, who reached the Olympic men’s singles quarterfinals, hockey player Sardar Singh, and squash player Dipika Pallikal, who Friday became the first Indian to reach semi-finals of a Gold Series event in Australia.

The final list was selected by eminent sportspersons and sports administrators headed by Col. Rajya Vardhan Singh Rathore.

Apart from a medal and a citation, the Khel Ratna awardees will get a cash prize of Rs.7.5 lakh each.

The Arjuna awardees will receive statuettes, citations and cash prize of Rs.5 lakh each. All of them will get the prizes from President Pranab Mukherjee Aug 29.

Following is the list of Arjuna winners:

Archery: Deepika Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi

Athletics: Sudha Singh, Kavita Ramdas Raut

Badminton: Ashwani Ponnappa, Parupalli Kashyap

Billiards and Snooker: Aditya Mehta

Boxing: Vikas Krishan

Cricket: Yuvraj Singh

Hockey: Sardar Singh

Judo: Yashpal Solanki

Kabaddi: Anup Kumar

Polo: Samir Suhag

Shooting: Annu Raj Singh, Omkar Singh, Joydeep Karmakar

Squash: Deepika Pallikal

Swimming: Sandeep Sejwal

Weightlifting: Ng. Sonia Chanu

Wrestling: Narsingh Yadav, Rajinder Kumar, Geeta Phogat

Wushu: M. Bimoljit Singh

Paralympic athletics: Deepa Mallick, Ramkaran Singh