Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat may be without their personal coaches in Tokyo Olympics

CHENNAI: The way things are, it seems India's two brightest medal prospects in wrestling — Bajrang Punia (65kg) and Vinesh Phogat (53kg) — have to compete at Tokyo Olympics without their personal foreign coaches. The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), of late, submitted a list of coaches and support staff, who would accompany the qualified wrestlers to the Games, to the IOA, but was asked to trim it down.

"As per the existing norms, a federation can send support staff which is 33 per cent of qualified athletes. Going by it, we cannot send more than three coaches as only eight Indian wrestlers had made the Olympic cut," a WFI official told this daily. "We have submitted a list of support staff but were asked by the IOA to cut it down. We haven't prepared the fresh list yet."

Ironically, out of eight qualified wrestlers, only seven seem surety for the Olympics as Sumit Malik (125kg) has been provisionally banned for a positive dope test.

Bajrang is being coached by Georgian Shako Bentinidis while Hungarian Woller Akos is the coach of Vinesh. Shako is on WFI's payroll and this gives him a chance to accompany Bajrang to the quadrennial event. But same is not the case with Vinesh as her coach is employed by her sponsor.
"Given the situation, it looks difficult for personal coaches to go to the Games. It all depends on the IOA now," said an official. Jagminder Singh is the head coach of men's freestyle wrestlers while Kuldeep Malik is the chief coach of the national women's wrestling team.

Besides coaches, the elite athletes also have their own personal staff like physiotherapists and masseurs. For example, the Olympic-bound wrestlers — Ravi Dahiya (57kg) and Deepak Punia (86kg) — have been accompanied by five people including coach Jagminder for the Poland Open. With doubt persisting over their coaches, it seems unlikely that these support staff would be allowed to accompany these athletes to the Olympics.