Andrew Cook, a coach of the Indian women’s wrestling team, has left for the U.S. after the national federation suspended the camps in Lucknow and Sonepat in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cook was with the Indian women’s team at SAI centre in Lucknow but only a handful of wrestlers were present there. Most wrestlers did not come back after the festival of Holi . Kuldeep Malik, the Indian coach at the camp, has also left for his home in Haryana after suffering from an upset stomach and fever.
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The Indian men’s team is yet to get a new foreign coach after Iranian Hossein Karimi left his job midway. “The coronavirus outbreak has shut the camp. I need not be stuck alone there, but [I’m] here with my family until we resume camp,” Cook told PTI from Seattle. “I am with my wife and dog and it’s so great. In Lucknow, I would have been solo. It wasn’t worth sitting alone there when I miss my family,” he added.
Training on their own
The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) said it supported those who chose to stay at home in the prevailing circumstances. “Cook has gone on leave. In the situation that we are facing, everybody wants to be with his family. Cook wanted to go, so we let him [go] since there is no national camp. Wrestlers are also training on their own,” WFI assistant secretary Vinod Tomar said.
The WFI staff, instead of working from home, are still coming to office since they have to settle accounts with the SAI before month-end.
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