Saina is Sports Person of the Year

Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal walked away with the Sports Person of the Year award for 2008-09, while world billiards champion Pankaj Advani and cricketer Virender Sehwag shared the honours for the year 2007-08 at the ninth PSPB Annual Awards.

The Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) on Wednesday night gave away the awards for two years 2007-08 and 2008-09 but the function lost some of its gloss as many awardees were not present at the function due to different reasons.

However, Advani, chess ace Abhijit Gupta, badminton players Shruti Kurien, Trupti Murgunde, India table tennis player Subhajit Saha among others were present on the occasion.

Meanwhile, former India table tennis player Monalisa Mehta was conferred with the Life Time Achievement award for 2007-08 while ex-hockey goalkeeper Romeo James was given away the honour for 2008-09 season.

Awards for the 2008-09:

Sports Person of the Year: Saina Nehwal (badminton)

Elite Sports Person for the Year: Pankaj Advani (billiards and snooker), Gautam Gambhir (cricket), Anup Sridhar (badminton), Abhijeet Gupta (chess)

Meritorious Sports Person of the Year: Chetan Anand (badminton), Ishant Sharma (cricket), Bajjit Singh (hockey), V Raghunath (hockey), A Sharath Kamal (table tennis)

Life Time Achievement Award: Romeo James (hockey)

Awards for the 2007-08:

Sports Person of the Year: Pankaj Advani (billiards and snooker), Virender Sehwag (cricket)

Elite Sports Person for the Year: Chitra K Soman (athletics), A Sharath Kamal (table tennis), Prabhajot Singh (hockey), Gautam Gambhir (cricket)

Meritorious Sports Person of the Year: Rajpal Singh (hockey), Koneru Humpy (chess), Tushar Khandekar (hockey), Ishant Sharma (Cricket), Abhijit Gupta (chess)

Life Time Achievement Award: Monalisa Mehta (table tennis)