To strengthen its coaching scheme, Sports Authority of India selects Railway wrestling coach Kripa Shankar Patel on deputation

India’s former international and Indian Railway wrestling coach Kripa Shankar Patel is all set to join the Sports Authority of India (SAI) on deputation for five years.

Kripa will join SAI’s coaching department next month and will be coaching wrestlers in the National Center of Excellence (NCOE) scheme in Sonepat, Haryana.

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Kripa Shankar Patel amongst several coaches joining SAI's NCOE scheme

To strengthen its coaching department, SAI is in the process of appointing coaches either on deputation or contract.

Kripa, who is an Arjuna awardee in wrestling, is excited to work with SAI’s NCOE that aims to nurture budding wrestlers.

“It will be a good opportunity to share my vast international experience as well as coaching skills with the young wrestlers at the NCOE. I will be joining SAI next month,” said the 44-year old Kripa.

SAI has three NCOE directly under its wings. Sonepat in Haryana is mainly for junior men, while Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai in Maharashtra are for female wrestlers.

There are three NCOE’s one each in Bellary (Karnataka), Hisar (Haryana) and Jalandhar (Punjab), are being run by private organizations but have been adopted by SAI.

NCOE in Sonepat has an overall strength of 110 wrestlers including 55 in Greco Roman. However, those shortlisted for the scheme are yet to report, said a wrestling coach associated with NCOE.

“The number of wrestlers who have joined NCOE in Sonepat are less than 30. More wrestlers are expected to join next month,” the wrestling coach said. “Several wrestlers shortlisted from Haryana are yet to join the scheme. We are in touch with the youngsters and their parents. We hope they join next month.”

SAI is also taking efforts to train Indian coaches under international experts

Meanwhile, Level 1 and Level 2 coaching courses in wrestling that were supposed to commence at the SAI Training Center in Sonepat on Wednesday have been canceled.

The five-day short course under the aegis of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) in coordination with SAI was called off as wrestling experts from Georgia couldn’t get flight to New Delhi, the WFI official said.

“The basic idea of conducting short Level 1 and Level 2 courses is to update the knowledge of the Indian coaches. The fresh dates will be announced soon,” said the WFI official.