President Ram Nath Kovind virtually presented the prestigious Arjuna Award to Assam’s boxer Lovlina Borgohain for her outstanding performance in boxing along with other athletes.
The winners of National Sports Awards were connected virtually to President Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan from 9 different Sports Authority of India-designated locations.
Lovlina was connected from Chandigarh.
Lovlina Borgohain, 23, who hails from Golaghat district, is the first woman from Assam to qualify for the Olympics and the second boxer from the state to represent the country after Shiva Thapa.
The boxer won a gold medal at the 1st India Open International Boxing Tournament held in New Delhi and a silver medal at the 2nd India Open International Boxing Tournament held in Guwahati.
She won a bronze medal at the 2019 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships held at Ulan-Ude in Russia.
Apart from Lovlina, the other players who also won the prestigious Arjuna Awad include Dutee Chand, Sawant Ajay Anant, Sandesh Jhingan, Aditi Ashok, Akashdeep Singh, Deepak, Kale Sarika Sudhakar, Divya Kakran, Rahul Aware, Suyash Narayan Jadhav, Sandeep Para and Manish Narwal.
The other winners of the award include Chirag Chandrasekhar Shetty, Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, Subedar Manish Kaushik, Ishant Sharma and Deepti Sharma.
The Union sports ministry announced the names of 27 sportspersons of the country for the Arjuna Award.
Meanwhile, Union sports minister Kiren Rijiju on Saturday announced an enhancement in the prize money in four of the seven categories of the National Sports Awards.
Rijiju made this announcement on the occasion of the 115th birth anniversary of hockey legend Dhyan Chand, which is celebrated as the National Sports Day.
The prize money for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award has been increased to Rs 25 lakh from the previous amount of Rs 7.5 lakh while Arjuna Award has been enhanced to Rs 15 lakh from Rs 5 lakh.