Two Gurgaon teen sportspersons to get Bhim Award

Two teenaged sportspersons from Gurgaon are among the 42 who will receive Bhim Award, the state’s highest sports award

Two teenaged sportspersons from Gurgaon are among the 42 who will receive Bhim Award, the state’s highest sports award, on Sunday. The two, swimmer Shivani Kataria and golfer Ranveer Singh Saini, will receive the award from the governor of Haryana in an award ceremony at Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh.

Ranveer Singh Saini, 16, is one of the sportspersons who are to receive the state’s highest sports award on Sunday. (HT Photo)

Other sportspersons to be awarded include Paralympian Deepa Malik, who will receive the award from Sonepat, and Olympian Sakshi Malik.

Nineteen-year-old Kataria said getting the award means a lot to her and she wants to make the country proud in the coming years. “I am happy that I was chosen for the award and my parents are even happier. The country has been supporting players and getting an award is an incentive to players to do even better. I want to inspire more students to take up this sport and bring laurels to our country,” she said.

A student of class 12 in DAV public school, Sector 14, Kataria is preparing for her board exams. She got a wild card entry in the Rio Olympics by Swimming Federation of India (SFI) president, Digambar Kamat, after no Indian swimmer was able to make it through the qualifiers.

She became the first Indian woman swimmer to make it to the Olympics after the 2004 Athens games.

Kataria started swimming at the age of eight with her cousin at Baba Gang Nath Swimming Centre on Old Gurgaon-Delhi road. Within three years she had won medals at the national stage.

“After exams, she will begin practicing to qualify for the 2018 Commonwealth and Asian Games,” said her father Harveer Kataria.

The other sportsperson from Gurgaon to be awarded, 16-year-old Saini, is the youngest player of the lot. Saini, a class 10 student of Scottish High International school, was diagnosed with autism at the age of two. Taking up golf was suggested to him by his special educators and therapists.

His achievements at the Special Olympics Golf Masters have earned him a place in the Limca Book of Records for three consecutive years – 2014, 2015 and 2016. His name was also among Limca Book of Records’ 10 people of the year in 2016.

“His calendar is packed with specific training programmes divided into days, weeks and months. Every single day there are golf sessions at the bunker, putting green, driving range and actual play on the course,” said his mother Bakhtawar Saini.

The Bhim Award is given to sportspersons of the state who have exhibited outstanding performance in national and international competitions in the last four years.

The players will be honoured with Rs5 lakh, an idol of Bhim, a citation and a blazer and tie/scarf, said Anil Vij, Haryana sports minister.