Laita Babar from Satara, who reached the final round of women’s athletics at recently concluded RiO Olympics was declared the Sportswoman of the Year award at the Sports Journalists Association of Mumbai(SJAM) Golden Jubilee awards function today evening. The new Chess Grandmaster of India Shardul Gagre from Ahmednagar received the honours of Best Sportsman of the year. Kabaddi queen Abhilasha Mhatre from Navi Mumbai received the Best Sportsperson of the year for Indian Games award, while popular Indian cricketer from Mumbai Ajinkya Rahane received the SJAM Cricketer of the year award. The wokman cricketer of the year award went to Devika Vaidya from Pune.
SJAM award winners with chief guest Zaheer Khan
Cricketer Rohit Sharma received award for Special performance in ODI. The Junior sportsman and sportswoman awards went to Siddhant Bantia for tennis and Akanksha Hagavane for chess. The Junior cricketer of the year award was presented to Armaan Jaffer.The ranaji Trophy cricketers of the year awards were presented to Shardul Thakur and Shreyas Iyer. Mumbai Cricket Association team was adjudged the team of the year, while the award for the best club in Mumbai went to Otters Club, for their best organisation work.
Ajinkya Rahane with his wife during SJAM awards function
Popular Indian Cricketer Zaheer Khan was the chief guest and gave away the prizes, while Indian cricket administrator Ajay Shirke was guest of honour. Among others who attended this function were, former Indian badminton Aparna Popat, Radhika w/o Ajinkya Rahane and others. Earlier, G.Vishwanath, President SJAM welcomed the invitees and vice presidents SJAB Clayton Murzello,Devidas Pandey, secretary SJAB Prashant Keni, Jt.secretary Gordon D’costa, treasurer S.S.Ramaswamy & chief gust Zaheer Khan. The event was sponsored by IDBI, Indianoil,Star Sports & Payade Sports Club, while Vijay Salvi & S.Kishore anchored the show.
Among the other award winners were as follows:
Best School: Bombay Scottish School
Special performance team: U Mumba
Best Association of the year: Billiards & Snooker Association of Maharashtra.
College of the year: Rizvi College of Arts & Science.