Mohammed Shami, R. B. Ramesh and other winners of the National Sports Awards 2023

Here is a list of top-performing athletes from various fields who were conferred with the National Sports Awards 2023 at the Durbar Hall in Rashtrapati Bhavan, Delhi.

The award ceremony for some of the highest sporting awards took place on 9th January 2024 at Rashtrapati Bhavan's Durbar Hall in Delhi. Some of the most promising and top-performing athletes received this honour from President Droupadi Murmu.  Here is the list of winners for the National Sports Awards 2023. 

Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award

The award is conferred for the most outstanding performance in the area of sports by a sportsperson over the time period of the last four years.

• Badminton duo Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy won this prestigious award. Unfortunately, the duo was not present to collect the award as they are currently playing in the Malaysia Open Super 1000 tournament.

Dhyan Chand Award for Lifetime Achievement 

This award is conferred to honour sportspersons who have contributed to the field of sports through their performance as well as after retirement.

• Manjusha Kanwar for Badminton
• Vineet Kumar Sharma for Hockey
• Kavitha Selvaraj for Kabaddi

Arjuna Award

The award is conferred for great performance over a time period of the last four years and for demonstrating qualities of sportsmanship, a sense of discipline, and leadership.

• Vaishali Rameshbabu for Chess
• Aditi Gopichand Swami for Archery
• Ojas Pravin Deotale for Archery
• Parul Chaudhary for Athletics
• Sreeshankar M for Athletics
• Mohameed Hussamuddin for Boxing
• Mohammed Shami for Cricket
• Divyakriti Singh for Equestrian Dressage
• Anush Agarwalla for Equestrian
• Diksha Dagar for Golf
• Pukhrambam Sushila Chanu for Hockey
• Krishan Bahadur Pathak for Hockey
• Ritu Negi for Kabaddi
• Pawan Kumar for Kabaddi
• Nasreen for Kho-Kho
• Pinki for Lawn Bowls
• Esha Singh for Shooting
• Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar for Shooting
• Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu for Squash
• Ayhika Mukherjee for Table Tenis
• Antim for Wrestling
• Sunil Kumar for Wrestling
• Naorem Roshibina Devi for Wushu
• Sheetal Devi for Para Archery
• Illuri Ajay Kumar Reddy for Blind Cricket
• Prachi Yadav for Para Canoeing

Dronacharya Award for Regular Category 

The award is conferred to coaches for demonstrating outstanding work consistently and for making it possible for sportspersons to ace in International events.

President Droupadi Murmu confers Dronacharya Award, 2023 on Shri Lalit Kumar for his achievements in Wrestling.



He has trained many prominent wrestling players namely Ravi Kumar who won Silver medal at the 2020 Olympic Games held in Tokyo, Japan in 2021, Deepak Punia who won… pic.twitter.com/ueJS8vSlb7

— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) January 9, 2024

• Lalit Kumar for Wrestling
• R. B. Ramesh for Chess
• Maheveer Prasad Saini for Para Athletics
• Shivendra Singh for Hockey
• Ganesh Prabhakar Devrukhkar for Mallakhamb
• Dronacharya Award Lifetime category
• Jashkirat Singh Grewal for Golf
• Bhaskaran E for Kabaddi
• Jayanta Kumar Pushilal for Table Tennis

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy

The award is given to the overall high-performing university in inter-university tournaments.

• Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar for Overall winning university
• Lovely Professional University, Punjab for 1st runner-up University
• Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra for 2nd runner-up University