CM Stalin presents cash rewards for sportsmen winning international events

The Chief Minister handed over a cheque of Rs 2 crore to Mariappan Thangavelu for winning silver medal in the recently held Paralympics in Tokyo, in the T-63 high jump event and the remaining cash prize to chess players who won medals in various international events.

The Chief Minister handed over the cheque of Rs 20 lakh each to four chess players grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand, V R Aravind Chidambaram, R Praggnanandhaa and R Vaishali for representing India and winning gold medal in the  FIDE online Olympiad in 2020. Their coach N Srinath was given Rs 12 lakh.

Similarly, Vishwanathan Anand, P Adhiban, Pragyanandha, Vaishali and Savitha were given cheques of Rs 10 lakh each for winning bronze in the FIDE online Olympiad in 2021. Coach of men's team Srinath was given Rs 4.5 lakh and coach of women's team Shyam Sundar was given Rs 3 lakh.

Adhiban was given Rs 20 lakh for winning gold in the FIDE team event held in Kazakhstan in 2019. Similarly, the Chief Minister handed over cheques of Rs 5 lakh each to P Iniyan for becoming Grand master in 2019 and for Srija Seshadri, V Varshini and P V Nandhitha for becoming women grand master.

The Chief Minister also handed over the cheque of Rs 3 lakh each for V S Rathinavel and M Pranesh for becoming International masters in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

After receiving the cash rewards, Vishwanathan Anand, while addressing the media in Secretariat, said that they are bright chances for young players from Tamil Nadu to shine in the international arena and also added that the state govt has assured to extend all possible help for them.