Odisha chess Grand Master Swayams Mishra and eminent athletics coach Arun Kumar Das have been nominated for OSJA the Annual Award for the year 2020. Mishra and Das will be honoured with the Sportsperson of the Year and Lifetime Achievement Awards respectively.

The awards will be conferred on March 21, on the occasion of sixth Foundation Day of Odisha Sports Journalists Association (OSJA) in a special function at Barabati Stadium, Cuttack. This was announced by OSJA president Sandeep Mishra today.

The OSJA Annual Awards for the year 2019, which were kept in abeyance due to Covid Pandemic, also will be presented at the same function. Para-badminton world champion Pramod Bhagat and eminent athletics coach Panchanan Gantayat will be conferred with the Sportsperson of the Year and Lifetime Achievement awards respectively for 2019.

All four awards will carry cheques of Rs 25,000 each and citations. Eminent mediapersons Hrudayanath Das and Shyamakanta Pattanayak will be felicitated on the occasion. Swayams Mishra became the second Grand Master of Odisha and 62nd of the country in May 2020.

Before taking to coaching, Arun Kumar Das excelled as a javelin thrower, winning two junior national bronze medals in his heydays. He created a meet record of 57.96m at the Junior National Athletics Championship in Ahmedabad, 50 years ago.

After obtaining a coaching diploma in athletics from National Institute of Sports, Patiala in 1974-75, Das groomed many national and international athletes including Olympian Anuradha Biswal. He served as a government athletics coach for 35 years before retiring in 2010.

Odisha Sports Journalists’ Association (OSJA) is the only affiliated Odisha unit of Sports Journalists’ Federation of India (SJFI). OSJA has been conferring its Annual Awards since the year 2018.

International heptathlete Purnima Hembram and veteran footballer Debendra Singh had bagged the OSJA Sportsperson and Lifetime Achievement Awards respectively for the year 2017. The awards for the year 2018 had been bestowed on hockey star Amit Rohidas and boxing coach Braja Bhusan Mohanty.