Chess wizard Viswanathan Anand beat a formidable field comprising cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, and tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi to be declared the sportsman of the year at the inaugural Hero Indian Sports Awards function.
Shooter Anjali Vedpathak won the sportswoman of the year award at a glittering ceremony in Delhi on Wednesday night in the presence of some of the biggest names in Indian sports.
The awards have been instituted by the Hero Indian Sports Academy, which recently launched the Indian chapter of the Laureus Sport of Good Foundation.
The awards were decided on the basis of votes by sports journalists from all over India.
Kapil Dev, who incidentally is the chairman of HISA, won the lifetime achievement award.
Outstanding performers in various sporting disciplines were also honoured on the occasion.
A number of sporting legends including Olympic gold medallist Edwin Moses and cricket all-rounder Ian Botham were present at the awards function, as were many Bollywood stars including Salman Khan and Vivek Oberoi.
Following are the awardees:
Best sportsman of the year - Viswanathan Anand
Best sportswoman of the year - Anjali Vedpathak
Best team of the year - women's hockey team
Best male young achiever in 2002 - Shiv Kapoor
Best female young achiever in 2002 - Koneru Humpy
Outstanding performance in athletics - Neelam Singh
Outstanding performance in badminton - Pullela Gopichand
Outstanding performance in chess - Viswanathan Anand
Outstanding performance in cricket - Rahul Dravid
Outstanding performance in football - Baichung Bhutia
Outstanding performance in golf - Jyoti Randhawa
Outstanding performance in cue sports - Geet Sethi
Outstanding performance in hockey - Dhanraj Pillay
Outstanding performance in kabaddi - B C Ramesh
Outstanding performance in shooting - Anjali Ved Pathak
Outstanding performance in weightlifting - Kunjarani Devi
Outstanding performance in other sport - Palwinder Singh Cheema.
