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Pro Kabaddi 2017, Season 5: Players who have won the Arjuna Award

Navneet Gautam was conferred the Arjuna Award in 2007

The Arjuna Awards are a recognition of outstanding achievements in national sports. Instituted in 1961, they are given by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India.

It was only in the year 1994 that the first kabaddi player was honoured with the Arjuna Award. Subbiah Rajarathinam won the prestigious award and since then, quite a few have managed to win the prestigious accolade.

After the inaugural edition of the Pro Kabaddi League a few years ago, several kabaddi stars have managed to hog the limelight and have seen the inclusion of their names on the Arjuna award winners list.

Let’s have a look at each one of them.

#1 Navneet Gautam

Veteran campaigner Navneet Gautam is a two-time gold medal winner in the Asian Games in Guangzhou and Doha as well as Asian Indoor Games in Vietnam and Macau. In addition to that, Navneet has also won the Kabaddi World Cup.

The 33-year old raider has bags of experience and is purely a defender who positions himself in the left corner. Belonging to Rajasthan, he was a champion with the Jaipur Pink Panthers in the inaugural season of the Pro Kabaddi League and played for them in the following two seasons as well.

After missing out in the fourth season, he will ply his trade once again for his hometown franchise come season five. In all, he has played 28 matches in the PKL and scored a total of 22 points.

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