President of India to honour two LPU Students with Country’s top Sports Award ‘Khel Ratna’

Jalandhar, November 9, 2021: President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind is to award two students of Lovely Professional University (LPU) with the highest national honour in sports ‘Khel Ratna Award’.  Olympics-2021 Gold Medal winner in Javelin Throw Neeraj Chopra, and Bronze Medal Winning Hockey Team’s Captain Manpreet Singh are presently continuing their studies with LPU. As per Sports Ministry of India, the award will be presented to these LPU students for their continuous excellent performance on International level competitions. Established in the year 1992, nearly 30 years ago, only 57 illustrious sports persons have been recognized with this ‘Khel Ratna’ honour so far for their unique and spectacular sports skills.
The President of India will present the prestigious sports award to LPU students at Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan on 13th November 2021 in New Delhi. Esteemed as India's highest sporting honour, the ‘Khel Ratna Award’ is lately known as ‘Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award’. Both of them are included in this year’s coveted winners’ list of 12 athletes to be honoured for their outstanding contribution in the field of sports. The awardees will receive their awards in person from the President at a specially organized glittering function.  Such an organization was held online last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the Khel Ratna award is given for the spectacular and most outstanding performance in the field of sports.
Neeraj Chopra hails from an agriculturist family of Panipat (Haryana), and he joined Bachelor of Arts programme at LPU in Punjab. As of August 2021, he is ranked second internationally by World Athletics. He is India’s first track and field athlete to win a gold medal for the country at the Olympics. In his debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Chopra won the gold medal with a javelin throw of 87.58 Mts. Up till now, LPU student Neeraj is one of the only two Indians to have won an individual Olympic gold medal. Also, he is the youngest-ever Indian Olympic gold medallist in an individual event, and the only one to have won gold in his Olympic debut.
Another LPU student to be awarded is Manpreet Singh of MBA Programme. He is the captain of India men's national hockey team, and led his team to win the bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Following his university’s slogan “Think Big”, his big dream is to "win big for India". His biggest goal is to "inspire youngsters to play a sport, any sport". In the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, he was also the flag-bearer during the opening ceremony along with boxing star Mary Kom. Under his leadership, the Indian hockey team staged a remarkable podium finish at the Olympic Games since long back in 1980.
Feeling immensely happy at the announcement of honours to be bestowed upon LPU students, Chancellor Mr Ashok Mittal shares: “We are proud of our illustrious sports persons Neeraj Chopra & Manpreet Singh who have brought gigantic glory to the country and the university through their world acclaimed and high spirited sports feats. I want to endorse that LPU is always eager to enrol talented students in diverse fields of their expertise with full support through university’s end.”