Sports Award of India: Dronacharya Award History, Contribution in Indian Sports

Sports coaching award of the Republic of India: Dronacharya Award, History, Key Fact

Dronacharya Award is sports coaching award of the Republic of India which is named after Guru Dronacharya who was a character from the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata of ancient India.

Dronacharya Award was instituted in 1958. This award conferred for outstanding Coaches and Games.

Dronacharya Award carries a cash prize of Rs. 3 lakhs, a Bronze statue of Dronacharya along with a certificate.

Important Key Fact About Dronacharya Award:

In 1985, B B Bhagwat, O. M. Nambiar, Om Prakash Bhardwaj were the first persons to receive the Dronacharya Award jointly.

In 1986, Desh Prem Azad followed by Ramakant Achrekar in 1990 were the first two Dronacharya Awardees for coaching cricket.

Raghunandan V Gokhle was the first awardee for chess in the year 1986.

Hansa Sharma was the first woman to receive this award in the year 2000 for weightlifting.

In 2015, Anoop Singh for Wrestling, Harbans Singh & Naval Singh conferred the Dronacharya Award for Athletics, Nihar Ameen for Swimming, Swatantrata Raj Singh for Boxing.

The renowned award Dronacharya Award has been given to six coaches in 2016 including Raj Kumar Sharma for Cricket, Mahabir Singh for Athletics, S Pradeep Kumar Swimming, Bishweswar Nandi for Gymnastics, Nagapuri Ramesh for Athletics and Sagarmal Dhayal for Boxing.

Raj Kumar Sharma is the coach of famous cricketer Virat Kohli and Bishweswar Nandi is the coach of Dipa Karmakar.