Amongst the prestigious sports awards of India, the "Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award" is considered to be a very honourable one. There are a very few number of sportspersons from various types of sports have been succeeded to win this award so far. All of these extraordinary sportspersons are amongst the best produced by India. After its inception in the year of 1991-92, the very first recipient of the award is the world famous Chess player from India Vishwanathan Anand. He won the award in the year of 1991. After that in the year of 1992, the very talented Billiards player Geet Sethi won the award. The award went to the sporting field of Yachting in the year of 1993 when Cdr. Homi d. Motivala and Lt. Cdr. P.K. Garg won it jointly.

The following two years, the award went to the Weightlifting field and Ms. K. Malleswari in the year of 1994. In 1995, another weightlifter named Ms. N. Kunjarani won the award. However, in the year of 1996, the then newest sensation of Indian Tennis, Leander Paes won this honourable award for the first time in his life. The famous game of Cricket that is compared with Religion in India entered it name for the first time in the Award`s list in the year of 1997 when Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar won it for his extraordinary talented batting.

In 1998, Jyotirmoyee Sikdar from Athletics won the "Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award" for her brilliant performance. Then in the year of 1999, the veteran Hockey player of India Dhanraj Pillay won the award and made all the Hockey players to feel proud for him. In the second year of the new millennium that is the 2001, the Badminton superstar from India who won the All England Badminton Championship at a very young age, won the award for showing excellence in his own field of sport. He was joined by the Shooting superstar Abhinav Bindra to share the award with him. The award again has a joint winner in the very following year when Anjali R. Bhagwat from the field of Shooting and Ms K.M. Beenamol from Athletics shared it. It stayed back to the field of Athletics as the then new latest sensation of India in Athletics, Anju Bobby George won it comprehensively. One of the great Shooting superstars from India, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore who won the Silver Medal in the 2004 Athens Olympic also won the prestigious "Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award" in the same year and in the year of 2005, the upcoming superstar of India in the field of Billiards, Pankaj Advani won the award. The Rajivgandhi Khel Ratna Award, 2007 presented to Manavjeet Singh Sidhu for his achievement in trap Shooting.

All the names of the sportspersons that have been discussed so far in this article are the winners of the "Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award". These awardees are also the biggest names of the history of Indian sports. However, there are still more and more sportspersons to come forward and win the award in future.

List of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awardees

	Year	Name of the Sportsperson(s)	Sport Discipline
1	1991-92	Viswanathan Anand	Chess
2	1992-93	Geet Sethi	Billiards
3	1993-94	Not Conferred*	-
4	1994-95	Cdr. Homi D. Motivala and Lt. Cdr. P. K. Garg	Yachting (Team Event)
5	1995-96	Karnam Malleswari	Weightlifting
6	1996-97	Leander Paes and Nameirakpam Kunjarani (Joint)	Tennis and Weightlifting respectively
7	1997-98	Sachin Tendulkar	Cricket
8	1998-99	Jyotirmoyee Sikdar	Athletics
9	1999-2000	Dhanraj Pillay	Hockey
10	2000-01	Pullela Gopichand	Badminton
11	2001-02	Abhinav Bindra	Shooting
12	2002-03	Anjali Ved Pathak Bhagwat and K. M. Beenamol (Joint)	Shooting and Athletics respectively
13	2003-04	Anju Bobby George	Athletics
14	2004-05	Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore	Shooting
15	2005-06	Pankaj Advani	Billiards & Snooker
16	2006-07	Manavjit Singh Sandhu	Shooting
17	2007-08	Mahendra Singh Dhoni	Cricket