Gopichand confirms he recommended Prannoy for Arjuna award

Prannoy had lambasted Badminton Association of India earlier for not nominating him

gopichand-prannoy-badminton National badminton coach Pullela Gopichand; H.S. Prannoy | Sanjay Ahlawat; Reuters

National badminton coach Pullela Gopichand revealed that he has recommended H.S. Prannoy for the Arjuna award after the latter had lambasted the Badminton Association of India (BAI) for not including him in the list of recommendations.

According to IANS, Gopichand said he recommended Prannoy’s name for the Arjuna award on June 3 in his capacity as a Khel Ratna awardee. The BAI had sent the list of recommendations on June 2.

Prannoy was livid at having been left out of the list of recommended players that included the doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and men’s singles player Sameer Verma.

The 27-year-old had taken to Twitter to express his displeasure at not being nominated for the award for the second consecutive year.

“#arjunaawards Same old story. Guy who has Medals in Cwg and Asian Championships not even recommended by the association. And guy who was not there on any of these major events recommended #waah #thiscountryisajoke (sic),” Prannoy had tweeted. He later deleted the tweet.

Prannoy had said that he nominated himself for the award and forwarded the application to the Sports Ministry following the snub.

The duo Satwik-Chirag had won the silver at 2018 CWG, but Sameer has never played at the tournament.

The BAI, however, had said then that it has “diligently assessed the performances of the athletes and coaches during the last four years before sending the names to the Sports Ministry for the recommendation.”

Prannoy and former world No.1 Kidambi Srikanth were slapped with disciplinary notices for leaving the Indian squad at the Asian Team Championships in the Philippines earlier this year. The duo had left for Barcelona to earn ranking points that was crucial for their chances to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.

The BAI said in a statement that Srikanth has been recommended for the Khel Ratna award while Prannoy has been given 15 days “to respond on his misconduct”.

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