Halappa among KOA awardees

Government allots Rs 13 crore to IBBC towards stadium construction

Sixteen sportspersons, one coach, one media photographer and nine veteran sportspersons form the list of 27, selected by a panel comprising former national badminton coach U Vimal Kumar, boxing coach M Venu, KSA president Neelkant Rao Jagdale, Sports Authority of India (South Centre) Director G Kishore, KOA secretary-general Anantha Raju and vice-president Mohan Raj.

“The selection panel has done a brilliant job in picking the awardees,” KOA president K Govindraj said at a press conference on Monday. “KOA will motivate and encourage the selected athletes in their future ventures.”

The athletes, coach (Nihar Ameen, swimming) and photographer (KS Sridhara, Vijaya Karnataka) will receive Rs 20,000 and mementos from Governor Hans Raj Bharadwaj at a function on Wednesday at the Raj Bhavan. Veteran awardees will receive citations and mementos.

Karnataka athletes who won medals at the Delhi Commonwealth Games and the Guangzhou Asian Games will be rewarded with special cash prizes.

Anantha Raju said nine athletes have confirmed their availability for the funcion as of Monday but Asiad 400M hurdles gold medallist Ashwini AC and CWG women’s badminton doubles gold medal winner Ashwini Ponappa will not be able to make it due to their busy schedule. “We were not able to honour the CWG medallists from Karnataka right after the event because they were busy. We thought we would have a function for CWG and Asian Games medallists together,” said Govindraj.

In another promising development, the government has allotted 13 crores to turn Indiranagar Basketball Club (IBBC) into a fully functional indoor facility.

“The government has allotted the money. We just have a couple of things to be sorted out. The indoor court will have wooden flooring and it will be air-conditioned. We have a lot more plans and we’ll try to make it a great stadium,” said Govindraj, who is also the president of the Karnataka State Basketball Association.


List of awardees: BM Vandana (archery), Nirupama Sunderraj (athletics), Nitya Sosale (badminton), Roshan P Thankachan (basketball), Geetanjali Joteppanavar (cycling), S Shankar (football), N Lokesh (gymnastics), Arjun Halappa (hockey), K Manoj (kabaddi), N Yogesh (kho-kho), Kavitha Yadav (shooting), Shubha Chittaranjan (swimming), G John Victor (taekwondo), N Jagadeesh (volleyball), Mohammed Rafiq Holi (wrestling), G Laxmi (weightlifting). Coach: Nihar Ameen (swimming). Media photographer: KS Sridhara (Vijaya Karnataka).
Veterans: Uday K Prabhu (athletics), Prakash Padukone (badminton), K Rajagopal, Pushpa Kuttanna (both basketball), G Manoharan (boxing), P Gopalappa (kabaddi), D Ethiraj (football), AB Subbaiah (hockey), B Saikumar (table tennis).