Taekwondoist Srishti to get Rani Laxmi Bai award

Taekwondoist Srishti to get Rani Laxmi Bai award

Wajiha Shah

Posted: Aug 24, 2010 at 0353 hrs IST

Lucknow International taekwondoist Srishti Singh of Allahabad will be getting Rani Laxmi Bai award for the year 2009-2010. This was decided in a meeting of the Laxman and Rani Laxmi Bai award committee which took place in the state capital on Monday. The Laxman and Rani Laxmi Bai awards are the highest state sports awards in the men’s and women’s section, respectively. Interestingly, despite names of some good players for the Laxman awards, no name was given a green signal for award. When contacted principal secretary sports (UP) Lalit Varma confirmed, “There were names of about 16 or 17 players in the Laxman award section and some of them were very good international players but their names could not be given a go-ahead for the award as they failed to meet the GO’s (government order’s) condition in this regard. They play for Railways and other teams at the national level and not UP. As per the GO, the candidate must have played for UP somewhere or the other. Being state sports awards, the criteria of bringing laurels to the state is also there. Srishti fulfilled this criteria.”

“There were names of international players like Tushar Khandekar for hockey and Arjuna awardee Rajeev Tomar for wrestling but on going through their documents it was found that they do not represent UP at the national level,” he claimed.

Srishti’s coach Ranjeet Yadav who is an ad hoc coach at Madan Mohan Malviya stadium, Allahabad informed that presently she is practising hard at the Indian team camp at Korea for the Asian Games. “She is a talented taekwondoist so I have great expectations from her in the Asian Games as well. She bagged a bronze in the feather weight category at the SAF Games held at Dhaka this year. She also won a bronze medal in the Fajr Cup International Open Taekwondo Championship held at Iran about two years ago. Besides she has been winning golds continuously at the nationals since 2001.”

For the year 2008-2009, Amit Choudhary (Body Building), Vivek Mishra (Gymnastics), Ratish Kumar Pandey (Handball), Jasmer Singh (Kabaddi), have been chosen for Laxman Awards, Sukanya (Athletics) would be given the Rani Laxmi Bai Awards. This was announced by the state government on July 31.

Change in award ceremony date

WHILE the sports department had announced earlier that the Laxman and Rani Laxmi Bai awards will be given away to players on National Sports Day which falls on August 29, the award ceremony date is likely to be changed.

Source:http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/taekwondoist-srishti-to-get-rani-laxmi-bai-award/664129/