BCCI announces cash rewards for all Tokyo Olympic medallists; Neeraj Chopra to get Rs 1 crore

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New Delhi, Aug 7: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Saturday (August 7) announced cash rewards for India's medal winners at the Tokyo Olympics with Rs one crore reserved for Neeraj Chopra, who became the country's first track and field athlete to win a gold medal.

Javelin thrower Chopra secured India's second individual gold in Olympic history with a sensational performance. In a tweet, BCCI secretary Jay Shah also announced that Rs 50 lakh each will be given to silver medallists -- Mirabai Chanu and Ravi Dahiya.

Mirabai Chanu won India's first weightlifting medal at the Games and Ravi Dahiya became only the second wrestler from the country to win a silver after Sushil Kumar (2012).

The bronze medallists -- wrestler Bajrang Punia, boxer Lovlina Borgohain and shuttler P V Sindhu -- will get Rs 25 lakh each. The men's hockey team which won its first Olympic medal in 41 years will get Rs 1.25 crore.

Chopra shattered several glass ceilings to become the country's first gold medallist in 13 years, his stupendous show making it the best ever Games for a nation starved for success at the grandest sporting spectacle.

In shoring up India's performance, Chopra achieved several firsts. He became the youngest Indian to win an Olympic gold, the first in track-and-field to do so and the only one to do it in his debut Games.

At 23, he joined Abhinav Bindra in the select gold club but beat him on age as the latter was 25 when he claimed the top prize in the 20008 Beijing Games. With this, the country surpassed the previous best haul of six medals achieved in the 2012 London Games where there was no gold.

It was also the first time that India picked up medals across so many varied disciplines. There were weightlifting and wrestling silver medals through Mirabai Chanu and Ravi Dahiya respectively. And the four bronze medals came from badminton star P V Sindhu, boxer Lovlina Borgohain, Punia and the men's hockey team, which finished on the podium for the first time in 41 years. Chopra saved the best moment for the last.

The 23-year-old son of a farmer from Khandra village near Panipat in Haryana produced a second-round throw of 87.58m in the finals, which nobody in a field of 12 could come anywhere close to. Brimming with confidence with hardly any nerves on display and just the way he did it in the qualification round three days back, Chopra began with a bang by sending the spear to a distance of 87.03m and then improved it to 87.58m, his best of the day.