Disappointed after missing out, archers question awards criteria

After none of the archers figured in this year's Arjuna awards list, the athletes have been left wondering what it will take for them to win. Compound archers V Jyothi Surekha and 2024 Paralympics gold medallist Harvinder Singh had applied for Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award, while Parneet Kaur had filed for Arjuna awards.

In the final assessment, the fight came down to choosing one amongst Harvinder and hockey star Hardik Singh. The committee led by Justice (retd) Arun Kumar Mishra failed to come to any consensus and chose not to recommend any name for the country's highest sporting honour. To the archers' surprise, the list has two names from kabaddi (Surjeet Narwal, Pooja), one from polo (Padmanabh Singh), a kho-kho athlete (Nirmala Bhati) and a first Arjuna award to yogasana (Aarti Pal).

Following the disappointment, compound coach and Dronacharya winner Jiwanjot Singh Teja questioned the decision and wrote a petition to the President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya with a request to review the evaluation criteria.

"…It is understood from recent media reports and deliberations of the Awards Committee for the 2025 session that no Khel Ratna Award has been recommended this year, and that no Archery athlete has been recommended for any National Sports Award. During informal interaction with a member of the Committee, it was conveyed that Compound Archery is not part of the Olympic programme, and therefore names from this discipline were not recommended," Teja wrote in his correspondence.

Speaking to The Tribune on Thursday, the compound coach said this was unfair on the archers. "We were surprised to know that athletes from kho-kho, kabaddi, polo and yogasana have been recommended. I have nothing against these sports, I agree that indigenous sports need to be promoted but not at our cost," he said.

"This is the second year in a row where no archer is on the awards list. We were told that a committee member objected to Jyothi and Harvinder's claim for the Khel Ratna because it is a non-Olympics event. Firstly, it is part of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics programme now and secondly, these archers have won many medals, including the World Championship medal, and not to mention winning medals at the Asian Games. How can they not give us the awards when as per their point criteria we are up there with many individuals," he added.

Parneet, who has won both the junior and senior World Championship gold besides the Asian Games and Asian Championship gold, said she still has not understood what happened.

"As of this moment, I am very confused. We had the points but even then none of us were part of the award list. It is not that we have not performed. We have won many medals so all I want to say is we would have been deserving candidates," she said.

Jyothi, who is world No. 2 and has won nine World Championship medals, said she was expecting the snub. Jyothi had approached the Delhi High Court after she was ignored by the committee last year and got a favourable order that said that the ministry should consider her case. Without saying much, she said she would carry on. “I already knew that I will not be part of the award list. But it is still disheartening to miss out. As athletes we cannot stop. All we can do is to shoot to win medals. If we stop (after the snub), it will be our loss," she said.