Indian Sports Honours; all eyes on Virat and Anushka

Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma grabbed all the limelight at the Indian Sports Honours awards, while some names from Indian sports fraternity like Sania Mirza, PV Sindhu, Mithali Raj, Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy, Ashish Nehra, Zaheer Khan, Umesh Yadav and Ravichandran Ashwin sizzled in their glamorous outfits. The event was also attended by film stars Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Siddharth Malhotra, Malaika Arora Khan and a few more.

The initiative was taken by the Business Tycoon Sanjeev Goenka joining hands with Virat Kohli Foundation and launched Indian Sports Honours intended to honour Indian sportspersons for their outstanding achievements.

The jury was chaired by badminton National Chief coach Pullela Gopichand, multiple Grand Slam winner Mahesh Bhupathi, legendary sprinter PT Usha, former world no. 1 shooter Anjali Bhagwat and former India hockey captain Arjun Halappa.

“India has made rapid strides as a sporting nation. The day of being a one-sport country is behind us. The time is right to introduce an institution that will recognize our top sporting achievers and put the spotlight on those, who are expected to do the country proud in years to come,” Kohli said during the launch of the honours.

“What makes this Sporting Honours unique is the direct involvement of the premier stakeholders of Indian sports — the sports-persons themselves, legends who have excelled at the highest level, the fans and the sports media. Apart from the recipients who will be shortlisted, there will be a ‘popular choice’ award as well, which will be voted directly by the fans,” said Goenka.

“It’s been a great year. To have the rankings (that) we have it is great. Srikanth has been fantastic. Only his performance could overshadow somebody like Prannoy’s, who also has been fantastic,” said national coach, P Gopichand.

Prannoy said the success of players is rubbing off on each other. “With all these guys performing well that has been a great motivation for the entire batch. Saina, Sindhu are doing well, so it’s a great team effort,” he said.

Showstoppers Anushka-Kohli:

Virat might not be in the contention for any award at the event, but he grabbed all the limelight when he walked hand-in-hand with Anushka.