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Ramakrishnan Gandhi, Satyanarayana nominated for Dronacharya Award
Ramakrishnan Gandhi, former athletics coach who passed away last year, has been nominated for the Dronacharya Award along with Paralympics coach Satyanarayana and kabaddi coach Heeranand Kataria.
Former national athletics coach Ramakrishnan Gandhi, who died last year, was among three coaches recommended for Dronacharya Award by the panel headed by chief national badminton coach, Pullela Gopichand.
Heeranand Kataria (kabaddi) and Satyanarayana (Paralympics) were the other two coaches recommended for the prestigious award.
Gandhi, a Sports Authority of India (SAI) coach, was associated with the race walk event. He was based in Bangalore and among those trained were international race walker Gurmeet Singh, Baljinder Singh and Deepmala Devi.
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The Bangalore-based Satyanarayana, a former national-level middle-distance runner, was also rewarded for guiding para-athlete Mariyappan Thangavelu, who claimed high jump gold at the 2016 Paralympics.
Women’s chief national wrestling coach Kuldeep Malik’s name was debated but didn’t find favour in the panel. Malik had claimed he was the coach of Rio bronze medalist Sakshi Malik.
Since another coach Mandip Singh from Haryana also claimed he should be considered for the award, the panel dropped both as a consensus couldn’t be reached.
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For lifetime achievement for coaches, the panel picked five –
GSSV Prasad (badminton), Brij Bhushan Mohanty (boxing), PA Raphel (hockey), Sanjay Chakravathy (shooting) and Roshan Lal (wrestling).
Three former internationals--- Bhupinder Singh (athletics), Syed Shahid Hakim (football) and Sumarai Tete (hockey) --- were nominated for Dhyanchand Award, for lifetime achievement in their respective fields.
