Overview
- The Wrestling Federation of India, which announced the hires on Tuesday, named Georgian Emzarios Shako Bentinidis for freestyle, Russian Gogi Koguashvili for Greco-Roman, Japanese coach Kosei Akaishi for the women’s team, and American Ian Butler as High Performance Director.
- They are slated to join national camps from May 1 and will each be paid a monthly salary of $7,000 after interviews coordinated with the Sports Authority of India.
- WFI says the appointments target podium results at the 2026 Asian Games and build toward the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
- Officials plan to centralize training in the men’s camp in Lucknow and the women’s camp in Delhi, with Butler shuttling between both sites to align planning, track workloads, and tie coaching to competition results.
- WFI cites past short-lived foreign tenures as a lesson and has arranged support to avoid communication gaps, including an interpreter for the Japanese coach and a defined coordination role for the HPD.