The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that it would be awarding a cash prize of Rs. 1 crore to India’s historic Olympic Gold medalist Neeraj Chopra, who won the independent country’s first-ever medal in Athletics in its 73-year-old Olympic history.
Apart from Chopra, the Indian Hockey men's team, which won the Bronze at Tokyo 2020 to end the country’s 41-year-old drought of Hockey medal would also be given a cash prize of Rs. 1.25 crore. Jay Shah, the Secretary of BCCI tweeted the news hours after Chopra won the country’s only Gold at Tokyo to take the medal haul to seven after Bajrang Punia won the Bronze medal in Wrestling earlier in the day.
Along with these athletes, the BCCI also confirmed that Silver Medalists from Tokyo 2020 Mirabai Chanu (Weightlifting) and Ravi Kumar Dahiya (Wrestling) would be getting Rs. 50 Lakh each while Bronze Medalists PV Sindhu (Badminton), Lovlina Borgohain (Boxing) and Bajrang (Wrestling) would be getting Rs. 25 lakh each.
It was however surprising that the Indian Women’s Hockey team, which had put up an inspiring show to reach the Semi-Finals of an Olympic event for the first time ever, but went down fighting valiantly 3-4 against Great Britain in the Bronze Medal match, was not in the list of the awardees by the BCCI.