The Hindu : Sport : Pankaj, Shikha honoured

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 31, 2006

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

Pankaj, Shikha honoured

Principal Correspondent

Bangalore: On a morning rich with appreciation and accolades, snooker and billiards champion Pankaj Advani and swimmer Shikha Tandon walked away with the State's `best senior sportsman' and `best senior sportswoman' awards respectively at the Sports Writers Association of Bangalore's (SWAB) annual awards function at Hotel Atria.

"Coming from journalists, we know that these awards are chosen on merit and that is something very special," Pankaj said in his acceptance speech, while Shikha thanked SWAB for its gesture in honouring her. "It makes me more determined to excel in the coming year," Shikha said.

Emotional moments

The function had its emotional moments when Arvind Savur, winner of the `Dronacharya Award' for cue-sports, and recipient of the SWAB special award, thanked the association for honouring him and also bemoaned the lack of space allocated to cue-sports and other sport in the media. "I thank SWAB for the honour and it is an award that has a high stature since sports writers select the winners. At the same time I would like to mention that dismissing our snooker and billiards triumphs in a few lines is something that the sports writers should try and improve upon," Savur said.

He also stated that though he did not grudge Sania Mirza's `Padma Shri' award, he did mention that there are many senior sportspeople who also deserve the award.

The guests of honour — Prakash Padukone and Ashwini Nachappa — also supported Savur's demand for more media space for other sports besides cricket and also reiterated their respect for the `SWAB' awards. Meanwhile cricketer Sunil Joshi released the SWAB souvenir.

Pruthviraj (volleyball) and V. Poojashree (tennis) won the `best sportsman' and `best sportswoman' awards in the junior category while the `best team' award was gifted to the State junior hockey team, which won the National junior championship at Vishakapatnam last year. Pruthviraj failed to turn up and his award was collected by the Karnataka Volleyball Association secretary K. Nanda Kumar while Poojashree along with her family members drove all the way down from Mysore for the function.

Tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi, Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid, the Nation's highest wicket-taker Anil Kumble and the Army XI football team that won the Durrand Cup were also awarded `special awards.'

Krishna Bhupathi, father of Mahesh received the special award as Mahesh was yet to return from Melbourne. Dravid and Kumble, away in Pakistan, could not attend the function and on their behalf the KSCA president Ramprasad and assistant secretary Sudhakar Rao collected the trophies.

The SWAB president Kalyan Ashok in his welcome address stressed that the association is keen to widen its activities while secretary C. Aprameya emphasised that the association will strive hard to ensure that the awards function will be a regular feature. Joint secretary Avinash Nair thanked the gathering while treasurer S.S. Shreekumar compered the function.

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