Union Sports Minister Ajay Maken on Thursday underlined the Government's commitment to recognise athletes' achievements in the London Olympics.
Maken wished the Olympic-bound athletes luck and hoped that they would be successful in the London Games. “If you win medals in the Olympics, we have kept aside Rs. 50 lakh for each gold medallist, Rs. 30 lakh for a silver medallist and Rs. 20 lakh for a bronze medallist. I wish all the athletes who have qualified for the Olympics get Rs. 50 lakh each,” said Maken, while giving away cash awards to athletes who had won medals in various international sporting events during 2010-11 and 2011-12.
Altogether Rs. 2,11,86,665 was distributed to 158 sportspersons from 11 disciplines In all, 28 athletes were present to receive the awards.
The cash awards are given by the sports ministry under its ‘Scheme of special swards for winners of medals in international events and their coaches'. Some of the awardees included long jumper Mayookha Johny, distance runners Sudha Singh and Preeja Sreedharan, 800m specialist Tintu Luka, discus throwers Vikash Gowda and Harwant Kaur, shot-putter Om Prakash Singh Karhana, weightlifters K. Ravi Kumar and N. Soniya Chanu, shuttlers G. Jwala and Ashwini Ponappa, chess players Parimarjan Negi, D. Harika, K. Humpy, Tania Sachdev, rowers Sawarn Singh, Sandeep Kumar and swimmer Rehan Poncha. — Principal Correspondent
