The Sports Journalists’ Federation of India (SJFI), at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday, decided to confer the prestigious SJFI Medal on legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar.
Neeraj Chopra, who won India’s lone gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, was named the SJFI Sportsman of the Year award while weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, who clinched a silver at the quadrennial extravaganza, was adjudged SJFI Sportswoman of the Year.
The Indian men's team which won the hockey bronze in Tokyo was declared SJFI Team of the Year.
Sumit Antil and Pramod Bhagat, the stars of India’s Paralympics campaign, were declared the SJFI Parathletes of the Year in the men’s category while shooter Avani Lekhra was named the SJFI Parathlete of the Year in the women’s section.
OGQ, which has been supporting Indian athletes at the Olympics for more than a decade, won the Special Recognition Award.
Vinod is SJFI President
The AGM also elected A. Vinod (Kerala) as the new SJFI President. Vinod is Deputy Editor (Sports) with The Hindu in Thiruvananthapuram.
The SJFI office-bearers:
President: A. Vinod (Thiruvananthapuram); Vice Presidents: Devendra Pandey (Mumbai), Vikas Pandey (Indore), Sambit Mohapatra (Odisha), and Saraju Chakraborty (Tripura); Secretary: Prashant Keni (Mumbai); Treasurer: Bidyut Kalita (Assam); Joint Secretary: Amitabha Das Sharma (Kolkata).
EC members: Amol Karhadkar (Mumbai), C. Santhosh Kumar (Tamil Nadu), Suprabhat Debnath (Tripura), Partha Chakraborty (Assam), Sushim Ghosh (Assam), Nilesh Deshpande (Nagpur), and Tushar Trivedi (Gujarat); Coopted: Sanjeev Samyal (Mumbai).