Sports Journalists’ Federation of India (SJFI)

The Sports Journalists’ Federation of India (SJFI) at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Guwahati on Wednesday decided to confer the prestigious SJFI Medal to legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar. Neeraj Chopra, who won India’s lone gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, was adjudged the recipient of the SJFI Sportsman of the Year award while weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, who won silver at the quadrennial extravaganza, was voted as the SJFI Sportswoman of the Year. The Indian men’s team that won the hockey bronze in Tokyo – its first hockey medal in 40 years – was declared the SJFI Team of the Year. Sumit Antil and Pramod Bhagat, the stars of India’s Paralympics campaign, will share the SJFI Parathlete of the Year in men’s category while shooter Avani Lekhra will receive the SJFI Parathlete of the Year woman award. Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ) , which has been doing pioneering work to support Indian athletes at Olympics for over a decade, is to be given the SJFI Special Recognition Award. The AGM also elected A. Vinod (Kerala) as the new SJFI President, Prashant Keni (Mumbai) as the Secretary and Bidyut 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), Sushim Ghosh (Assam), Nilesh Deshpande (Nagpur), Tushar Trivedi (Gujarat). Coopted: Sanjjeev Samyal (Mumbai).