India’s President Droupadi Murmu gave the Arjuna Award to bowler Mohammed Shami, shooters Ojas Pravin Deotale, Sheetal Devi, and Aditi Gopichand Swami, and wrestler Antim Panghal on Tuesday at Rashtrapati Bhawan. Their names are on the award.
The Arjuna Award is India’s second-highest athletic honor. It is given to people who have done well in sports over the past four years and shown leadership, sportsmanship, and focus.
Overall, 17 athletes were given the Arjuna Award for their work in 2023. One of them was tar speedster Shami, who broke several records and was the tournament’s top wicket-taker with 24 strikes. A day before the event, the experienced pacer talked about how happy he was to receive the prestigious award and how few people are able to do so, even after years of hard work. “This award is just a dream. People live their lives and never get this award.” I’m glad that someone put me forward for this award. “Getting this award feels like a dream for me because I’ve seen so many people get it my whole life,” Mohammed Shami told ANI. Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, a shooter, Sheetal Devi Aditi Swami, a para-archer, and Antim Panghal, a U20 World Champion wrestler, have also earned the award. Sheetal won three medals at the 2018 Para Asian Games. She won gold in the women’s singles compound open event, silver in the women’s team event, and gold in the mixed team event.
Sheetal played amazing tennis and beat Alim Nur Syahidah of Singapore in the women’s singles event. Alim Nur took a point lead in the first three sets thanks to her accuracy, but the match was very close. After the first three sets, she had a three-point lead, and the last two sets were still to play. Sheetal scored back-to-back perfect scores to win the game. Alim Nur missed a couple of shots, though. The final score she got was 144–142, which made her the winner.
Indian shooters won nine medals, five of which were gold. Nineth-ranked Ojas Pravin won two gold medals, and Jyothi Surekha got three medals all together. In the final of the men’s compound archery, Ojas competed against Abhishek Verma. Ojas beat Abhishek by a score of 149–147 to win the gold medal.The mixed team compound archery event was won by Ojas and Jyothi Surekha. They beat Chaewon So and Jaehoon Joo of South Korea to win second place.
These people have been given the Arjun Award: Mohammed Shami for cricket; Ajay Reddy for blind cricket; Ojas Pravin Deotale for archery; Aditi Gopichand Swami for archery; Sheetal Devi for para archery; Parul Chaudhary and Murali Sreeshankar for athletics; Mohd Hussamuddin for boxing; R Vaishali for chess; Divyakriti Singh and Anush Agarwalla for equestrian; Diksha Dagar for golf; Krishan Bahadur Pathak for hockey; Sushila Chanu for hockey; Pinky for lawn ball; Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar for shooting; Antim Panghal for women’s
