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Ignored for the Khel Ratna

K.P. Mohan

Olympic medal not good enough for Sushil Kumar and Vijender?

NEW DELHI: An individual Olympic medal is a rarity in Indian sports. That is why the nation rejoiced more than ever before last year when we gained not just one medal, but three including the gold, the country’s first, by shooter Abhinav Bindra in the Beijing Olympic Games.

Bindra’s achievement, in a way, overshadowed what otherwise would have been no less a sensational feat in Indian sports, a bronze medal each in wrestling and boxing by Delhi’s Sushil Kumar and Haryana’s Vijender Singh.

Bindra, Sushil and Vijender were feted, showered with cash prizes, plots and promotions. That was last August. Came January and Sushil and Vijender were disappointed, to put it mildly, at being omitted from the Padma awards list. Do we still have to plead for recognition? Sushil had asked then.

Not an outright choice

Six months later Sushil and Vijender find themselves being recommended for a share of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award as a special case; not as outright choices.

A panel, headed by eight-time National table tennis champion Indu Puri, named woman World champion boxer M.C. Mary Kom for the Khel Ratna the other day with a plea to also consider the cases of Sushil and Vijender.

Should an Olympic medallist not be an automatic choice for the Khel Ratna award considering the meagre haul we have had through the years? Since there were three in Beijing, all three should have been in contention with the eventual verdict going in favour of Bindra. But then, a rather illogical rule in the Khel Ratna scheme, that the award cannot be given to the same person again, kept the Chandigarh shooter out since he had received it for the year 2001.

If the Nobel prize, an Oscar or a Laureus World Sports award — Roger Federer won it four years in a row from 2005 — can be given again, one fails to understand the logic behind the Khel Ratna being denied to a sportsperson a second time.

After all, the award is for the year concerned not for an overall achievement through the years. “The spectacular and most outstanding performance in the field of sports by a sportsperson in a year shall be honoured with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award” says the rule.

No one could have argued that the ‘most spectacular and outstanding performance’ in 2008, outside of Bindra’s golden feat in Beijing, could not have been Sushil and Vijender’s or that there was anything better than the Olympic performance of these three in Indian sports in 2008.

Priceless performers

Nothing could have separated Sushil and Vijender even if the selection panel was working under the constraints of rules framed by the Government. The two, along with Bindra, had joined a short list of individual Indian medal winners in the Olympics, K.D. Jadhav (wrestling, 1952), Leander Paes (tennis, 1996), Karnam Malleswari (weightlifting, 2000) and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (shooting, 2004), all barring Jadhav being eventual Khel Ratna winners. (The Khel Ratna was instituted in 1991). Just four Olympic medallists before 2008; you can imagine how priceless but elusive an Olympic medal had been for an Indian outside of hockey.

True, Mary Kom has waited a long time to be nominated for the honour after a few close misses; four World championship titles that cannot be matched by any Indian other than someone from billiards.

But then, women’s boxing has to be viewed in the right perspective.

The sport is yet to get established at the highest level, having had a World championship only from 2001 and still to get into the Olympics programme.

The ball is in Mr. Gill’s court. He was upset that the Home Ministry had not taken note of his ministry’s recommendations for the Padma awards. Now, it is a decision he alone has to take.

Can you ignore an Olympic medal winner for the top sports award of the country? It might become too late for Sushil and Vijender next year.

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