Para-athlete Deepa Malik was conferred with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. The 49-year-old Parathlete has got the highest sporting honour.

Deepa’s journey started with trials and tribulations of spinal surgery, tumours multiple stitches on her shoulders, hardships rejections and
finally breaking the myths around her to become the Paralympian queen.

Deepa is the first Indian woman to have won a medal in Paralympic Games, winning a silver in shot put at the Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. She also won the gold in the F-53/54 javelin throw at the Para Athletic Grand Prix in Dubai in 2018.

Arjuna Awards has been conferred to fourteen sports persons for the year 2019. They include cricketer Poonam Yadav, athlete Swapna Barman, wrestler Pooja Dhanda, footballer Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, bodybuilder S. Bhaskaran, boxer Sonia Lather, kabaddi player Ajay Thakur, table tennis player Harmeet Rajul Desai and badminton player Bhamidipati Sai Praneeth.

Dronacharya Awards in the regular category were given to Sandeep Gupta in Table tennis and Vimal Kumar in badminton.  Dronacharya Awards in lifetime category were given to Sanjay Bhardwaj in Cricket, Rambir Singh Khokar in Kabaddi and Merzban Patel in Hockey.

Dhyan Chand Awards were given to Manoj Kumar in Wrestling, C Lalremsanga in Archery, Arup Basak in Table Tennis, Nitten Kirrtane in Tennis and Manuel Fredricks in Hockey.

The President has also conferred Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Awards, 2018 to six persons.