Courtesy: X

Courtesy: X

On Friday, January 17, during the National Sports Day ceremony, which was held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker and world chess champion D Gukesh were conferred with the prestigious Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award by the Indian President Droupadi Murmu. Apart from these two star athletes, Indian men’s hockey team captain Harmanpreet Singh, who led his side to Paris Olympic bronze medal, along with Praveen Kumar, the gold medalist at Paris Paralympics in high jump, were also the recipients of the Khel Ratna award.

Last summer, at the Paris Olympics 2024, Manu Bhaker overcame disappointment of the previous Olympic Games, to win two bronze medals in women’s shooting in the 10m women’s pistol event and mixed team event alongside Sandeep Singh. With that, she became the first Indian athlete to take home multiple medals from a single Olympic Games since their independence in 1947, and the second overall athlete after Norman Pritchard, who did the same in 1900.

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D Gukesh became the youngest world chess champion in history

As far as D Gukesh is concerned, he became the youngest world chess champion in history after defeating Chinese player Ding Liren in a grueling 14-game title match with a scoreline of 7.5-6.5 last month. It also etched the 18-year-old in the history books as the second-ever world chess champion from India after legendary Viswanathan Anand achieved the same feat more than 20 years ago.

While there were four recipients of the prestigious Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, 32 athletes also received the Arjuna Award during the National Sports Day ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. The second-highest sporting honour in India was awarded to more para-athletes in comparison to their able-bodied counterparts after their impressive performance as a collective unit at the Paris Paralympics 2024.