Sindhu, Srikanth top ESPN honours

​New Delhi: Shuttlers ruled the roost as PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth were on Monday named ‘Sportspersons of the Year’ with their coach Pullela Gopichand being adjudged ‘best coach’ at the inaugural ESPN Multi-Sport Awards.

Srikanth claimed the title of ‘Sportsperson of the Year – Male’ for his incredible run, bagging four Super Series titles. He became the only Indian and the fourth player ever to achieve it in one calendar year.

Rio Olympics silver medalist Sindhu clinched the ‘Sportsperson of the Year – Female’ title for her fantastic performance round the year, winning the Indian and Korean Open Super Series titles.

Other winners included the Indian National Women’s hockey team, which bagged the ‘Team of the Year’ title for their first Asia Cup triumph in 13 years.

The ‘Moment of the Year’ award was decided through a public poll and was awarded to Jeakson Singh for scoring a memorable goal against Columbia in the U-17 FIFA World Cup. The goal made Jeakson the only Indian to score in a FIFA event.

MC Mary Kom (Comeback performance); Aditi Ashok (Emerging Athlete); Pullela Gopichand (Coach); Ramanathan Krishnan (Lifetime achievement); Sundar Singh Gurjar (Differently-abled) and the Target Tokyo Award to  Neeraj Chopra (Track and field) were the other winners of the ESPN awards.

The awards, which recognise achievements across 11 categories, were selected by an independent 14-member jury.

They comprised of eminent sports personalities including Abhinav Bindra, Somdev Devvarman, Bhaichung Bhutia, Jagbir Singh, Rohit Brijnath, Venkatesan Devarajan, Nisha Millet, Aparna Popat, Jagdish Kaliraman, Manisha Malhotra and  Anju Bobby George.