President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind honoured two students of Lovely Professional University (LPU) with the highest national honour in sports ‘Khel Ratna’ on Saturday, the 13th of November 2021. Olympics-2021 gold medal winner in Javelin Throw Neeraj Chopra, and Bronze Medal Winning Hockey Team’s Captain Manpreet Singh are LPU students of BA and MBA Programmes, respectively. This occasion was the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports’ ceremony for giving away national sports awards- 2021 to eminent sports persons of the country. The Hon'ble President presented the prestigious sports award to LPU students at Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.Venerated as India's highest sporting honour, the ‘Khel Ratna Award’ is presently known as ‘Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award’. Both of LPU students were prominently included in this year’s coveted winners’ list of 12 athletes. The Khel Ratna award is given for the spectacular and most outstanding performance in the field of sports.As per Sports Ministry of India, the award to LPU students is presented 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 sports skills.
Congratulating the elite winners and all at LPU, Chancellor Mr Ashok Mittal expressed immense happiness and shared that LPU is always set to support talented students in diverse fields of their expertise. We are thrilled and proud on seeing the top honours conferred on our world renowned sports persons- Neeraj Chopra & Manpreet Singh. They have brought laurels to the country and the university through their high spirited sports skills.”Belonging to an agriculturist family of Panipat (Haryana), Neeraj Chopra joined Bachelor of Arts programme at LPU in Punjab. He is presently 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 Manpreet Singh of MBA Programme is the captain of India men's national hockey team. He led his team to win the bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. In the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, he was also the flag-bearer during the opening ceremony. Under his leadership, the Indian hockey team staged a remarkable podium finish at Olympics 2020 since long back in 1980.Illustrative, LPU has already awarded its 13 medallist- students of Olympics 2020 with cash awards of above Rs 2 Crores, on their visit to the campus after illustrious wins. These included gold winning Neeraj Chopra; Manpreet Singh and six other members of bronze winning hockey team; bronze winning wrestler Bajrang Punia; silver winning paralympian Nishad Kumar and others. One of the roads at LPU Campus has also been named as ‘Neeraj Chopra Marg’ to keep on inspiring students to earn glory for the country, university and self.It is also a matter of great pride that LPU Olympian students have won record Olympic medals, including the first gold medal by Neeraj Chopra in athletics in a long duration of 121 years of the games. Similarly, LPU’s Paralympian athlete is part of India’s that team of para-athletes which has created history by grabbing the best ever 19 medals for the country including five gold medals for the first time.