ESPN is a U.S. based sports television channel held by ESPN Inc., a joint venture recognized by The Walt Disney Company and Hearst Communications. ESPN Multi-Sport awards perceived the achievements across 11 divisions, of which winners across 10 categories were selected by a nonpartisan 14-member jury.
On 4th April 2019, PV Sindhu has been identified as the Sportsperson of the Year female at the ESPN India Awards, the second year in a series and Neeraj Chopra, also the winner in 2017 with the Target Tokyo award, bagged the Sportsperson of the Year Male award for 2018.
The ‘Moment of the Year’ award was selected through the public poll and has been bestowed to the Indian women’s 4x400m relay team for prevailing the gold at the Asian Games.
Neeraj, Sindhu, Saurabh, and Saina were virtually consistent choices in the final voting tally, while Jaspal Rana had to fight off a close contest with India’s former table tennis coach Massimo Costantini.
The ESPN Awards acknowledge the best individual and team performances in Indian sport on a calendar-year basis.
Cricket is previously comprised by ESPN Cricinfo’s annual awards and so was not covered in these awards.
The Award Winners were:
- Sportsperson of the Year (Male) – Neeraj Chopra (Athletics)
- Sportsperson of the Year (Female) – P V Sindhu (Badminton)
- Comeback of the Year – Saina Nehwal (Badminton)
- Coach of the Year – Jaspal Rana (Shooting)
- Emerging Sportsperson of the Year – Saurabh Chaudhary (Shooting)
- Team of the Year – Women’s team (Table Tennis)
- Match of the Year – Amit Panghal vs Hasanboy Dusmatov (Boxing)
- Differently-abled athlete of the Year – Ekta Bhyan (Para-Athletics)
- Moment of the Year – Women’s 4x400m Relay
- Lifetime Achievement Award – Pradip Kumar Banerjee (Football).
