Anand, Anjali sportspersons of the year

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.