Tokyo Olympics: UP govt announces Rs 6 crore reward for gold medal winners from state

The Uttar Pradesh government has announced that all athletes from the state who will win a Gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics will be rewarded with a cash prize of Rs 6. The UP government will also reward Rs 4 crore and Rs 2 crore to athletes winning a Silver and a Bronze medal respectively. For sportspersons participating in team events, each player will be rewarded with Rs 3 crore for winning the Gold medal, while Silver and Bronze medallists will be rewarded with Rs 2 and Rs 1 crore each. Apart from this, each athlete participating from UP in the Tokyo Olympics will be rewarded with Rs 10 lakh each. This reward is independent of their performance at the games.

Uttar Pradesh has a representation of a total of 10 players from the Indian contingent travelling to the Tokyo Olympics. Ahead of the event, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath congratulated the athletes and wished them luck.

Tokyo Olympics

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) is considering to host the national awards after the completion of the Olympics to possibly include the medallists at the ceremony. Tokyo Olympics will be starting from July 23 and will end on August 8. More than 120 Indian athletes are going to travel for the Tokyo Olympics. The Games were supposed to be held last year, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

An unidentified source told ANI, "This has been discussed in the meeting of concerned department officials. We have nominations but it will be on hold as we wanted to include Olympic medallists. Another meeting to finalise this will be happening soon but as of now, I can say that national awards are likely to be delayed for this reason. Final call to be taken soon."

The National Sports Awards were scheduled for August 29 at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Awards like the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, the Arjuna Award, the Dronacharya Award, and the Dhyan Chand Award come under the National Sports Awards. The ceremony takes place on August 29 every year and coincides with the birth anniversary of hockey legend Major Dhyan Chand.