The Sports Journalists’ Federation of India (SJFI) on Tuesday decided to confer the prestigious ‘SJFI Medal’ to legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar.
The body took the decision at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Guwahati.
Neeraj Chopra, who won India’s lone gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, was adjudged the SJFI Sportsman of the Year while weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, who won a silver at the quadrennial extravaganza, was voted as the Sportswoman of the Year, according to a media statement.
The Indian men’s team that won the hockey bronze in Tokyo – its first hockey medal in 40 years – was declared the Team of the Year.
Sumit Antil and Pramod Bhagat, the stars of India’s Paralympics campaign, will share the Para-athlete of the Year in men’s category while shooter Avani Lekhra will receive the Para-athlete of the Year woman award.
The AGM also elected A Vinod (Kerala) as the new SJFI President, Prashant Keni (Mumbai) as the Secretary and Vidyut Kalita (Assam) as the Treasurer.
The other Executive Committee members are:
Vice Presidents: Devendra Pandey (Mumbai), Vikas Pandey (Indore), Sambit Mohapatra (Odisha) and Saraju Chakraborty (Tripura).
Joint Secretary: Amitabha Das Sharma (Kolkata)
EC Members: Amol Karhadkar (Mumbai), C Santhosh Kumar (Tamil Nadu), Suprabhat Debnath (Tripura), Partha Chakraborty (Assam), Sushin Ghosh (Assam), Nilesh Deshpande (Nagpur), Tushar Trivedi (Gujarat).