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The Times of India
The Times of India
Sport
Arnab Lall Seal | TNN

Saikia 'incredibly happy' after Arjuna honour

Assam's Nayanmoni Saikia was on cloud nine on Monday after she was selected for the prestigious Arjuna Award. Saikia, coming from Golaghat district, was part of the lawn bowls women's team that won the historic gold medal at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games earlier this year.

Apart from Saikia, Manipur's Shushila Devi Likmabam was the only other athlete from the northeast to be selected for the award. Shushila, who hails from Heingang, East Imphal, won silver at the Birmingham meet. It was her second medal at the quadrennial event having earlier also won silver at the Gold Coach event. Shushila was also the lone judoka from India to take part at the Tokyo Olympics.

Meanwhile, speaking to TOI after announcement of the awards, Saikia said, "Incredibly happy to have received the award. It's a special feeling to first win the gold medal at CWG and then to get Arjuna award."

Although not much has changed since Saikia and her teammates won the historic gold, she is more than happy to have made the game popular in the country.

"Whenever people meet me these days, they ask me about the game, they tell me that they try to learn as much as possible by searching the game on internet. What makes me happiest though is when they tell me that I have made them proud by winning a medal for the country," she added. "It feels really good to achieve all this despite coming from such a small town."

The financial assistance that she got from the Indian Olympic Association, Indian government and the Assam government after the CWG feat has also been of great help for Saikia, who was also promoted to DSP of Assam police.

After creating history at the Games, she continued with her good show and won two more medals at the National Games held in Gujarat in September-October. In the women's pairs, she won gold alongwith Tania Choudhary while in the women's singles event she bagged the bronze medal.

Currently she is training for eight hours a day at Sarusujai Stadium in Guwahati for the nationals which are expected to be held in New Delhi. "After that we have the Asian Championships and then we will be taking part in the Asia Pacific Bowls Championship where we took part in 2019," said Saikia, who took up the game after an injury forced her to give up weightlifting.

In the Asia Pacific meet in 2019, India had quite a successful outing and Saikia will be eager to finish on the podium this time around. That year the event was held in Gold Coast, Australia, and India finished on the podium in two events. Tania Choudhary won bronze in women's singles while Tania Choudhury, Rupa Rani Tirkey and Sarita Tirkey won silver in women's triples.

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