Stalin honours sportspersons with cash awards
Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday honoured various sportspersons from the state with cash rewards, who represented India at various international events and brought laurels to the country.
The Chief Minister handed over a cheque of Rs 2 crore to Mariappan Thangavelu, who won silver in the recently held Paralympics in Tokyo, in the T-63 high jump event and the remaining cash prizes to chess players, who won medals in international events.
Stalin handed over a cheque of Rs 20 lakh each to four chess players – grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand, VR Aravind Chidambaram, R Praggnanandhaa and R Vaishali – for representing India and winning gold medal in the FIDE online Olympiad in 2020. Their coach N Srinath was given Rs 12 lakh.
Similarly, Vishwanathan Anand, P Adhiban, Praggnanandhaa, Vaishali and Savitha were given cheques of Rs 10 lakh each for winning bronze in the FIDE online Olympiad in 2021. Coach of men’s team Srinath was given Rs 4.5 lakh and coach of women’s team Shyam Sundar was given Rs 3 lakh. Adhiban was given Rs 20 lakh for winning gold in the FIDE team event held in Kazakhstan in 2019.
Similarly, the Chief Minister handed over cheques of Rs 5 lakh each to P Iniyan for becoming Grand master in 2019 and for Srija Seshadri, V Varshini and PV Nandhitha for emerging women grandmasters.