Arjuna Award for 17 Athletes, Including Malayalis Muhammed Ajmal and Treesa Jolly

New Delhi: Seventeen athletes, including Malayalis V Muhammed Ajmal and Treesa Jolly, have been selected for the Arjuna Award. Ajmal is a track star from Palakkad, while Treesa is a badminton player from Kannur. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports announced the awards on Tuesday. No athlete has been selected for the Khel Ratna this year.

The athletes selected for the Arjuna Award are Tejaswin Shankar, V Muhammed Ajmal and Priyanka Goswami (athletics); Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand (badminton); Narender (boxing); Vidit Gujarati and Divya Deshmukh (chess); Dhanush Srikanth (deaf shooting); Lalremsiami and Rajkumar Pal (hockey); Surjeet and Pooja (kabaddi); Rudraksh Khandelwal (para-shooting); Ekta Bhyan (para-athletics); Arvind Singh (rowing); and Akhil Sheoran (shooting).

Footballer I Arumainayagam has received the Arjuna Award in the Lifetime Achievement category.

Treesa Jolly, who won two medals at the Commonwealth Games, was given a job in the State Goods and Services Tax Department by the LDF government. She won a bronze medal in women’s doubles and a silver in the mixed team event. Treesa is the first Malayali athlete to win two medals at the Commonwealth Games.

She achieved these accomplishments while studying at Brennan College. Treesa, a native of Cherupuzha in Kannur, received her early training under her father, Jolly Mathew. Recognising her talent, the Kerala Badminton Association sent her to Indonesia for a month of specialised training.

At the Under-15 level, she represented India at the Sub-Junior Asian Games and the Junior World Championships in Russia. She won both the singles and doubles titles at an international tournament in Bangladesh and finished third at an international tournament in Dubai.

In 2021, Treesa represented the Indian senior team at the Thomas and Uber Cup in Denmark and reached the quarter-finals. She finished runner-up at the International Challenge tournament in Poland and won the Infosys International Tournament held in India.