IOA announces awards in memory of Randhir Singh and Jaspal Rana

New Delhi: Indian Olympic Association president PT Usha on Tuesday announced the institution of two awards in the memory of Randhir Singh and Jaspal Rana, the two shooting stalwarts who passed away this year.

The Raja Randhir Singh Memorial Trophy will be presented to the best Indian male athlete of the Asian Games, while the Jaspal Rana Memorial Trophy will go to the best female athlete of the Games.

“I believe this is a fitting way to remember these two extraordinary men. Jaspal devoted himself to developing new champions, Raja ji devoted his life to serving the Olympic movement. Both understood what it meant to wear the Indian colours and represent our country on the biggest stage of sports, and now their names will travel with our athletes into the future,” Usha said.

“Imagine a young Indian woman, years from now, standing at the Asian Games after producing the performance of her life and holding the Jaspal Rana Memorial Trophy, and a young Indian man doing the same, holding the Raja Randhir Singh Memorial Trophy,” Usha said during the launch of the book Maverick Jaspal -- The Man Who Changed Indian Shooting, written by senior journalists S Kannan and G Rajaraman.

Singh, a five-time Olympian and the first Indian shooter to win an Asian Games gold, was a longtime administrator and served in various capacities in the IOA and OCA, and was also as an IOC member from 2001 to 2014. He passed away at age 79.

Jaspal emerged as a teenage shooting prodigy at the 1994 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games and had a stellar career as a pistol shooter. He then turned to coaching and guided Manu Bhaker to two Olympic medals at the Paris Olympics.