A.N. Yadav and Mahavir Prasad have been sacked as the chief coaches of the women’s freestyle and Greco Roman teams respectively, while Jagminder Singh has been appointed the head coach of the men’s freestyle squad.

Singh replaces Kuldeep Malik, who has been put in charge of the women’s freestyle team and will join the national camp for Rio 2016 in Lucknow tomorrow (January 15).

Another change has seen Kuldeep Singh promoted to chief coach of the Greco Roman team having served under Prasad for nearly two years.

India won just one medal, a bronze, at last year's World Championships in Las Vegas, and they also failed to win a gold at the 2015 Asian Championships in Doha where their tally consisted of one silver and four bronzes. 

The WFI had wanted to change the coaches earlier, according to assistant secretary Vinod Tomar, but was waiting for feedback from the wrestlers in the three disciplines.

"The women's team requested the WFI to re-appoint Malik as its chief coach since the grapplers were not able to deliver satisfactory results under Yadav," Tomar told The Tribune, an Indian English-language daily newspaper.

"The WFI, too, noticed that the team's performance has gone down considerably.

"So, we asked Malik to take charge of the national camp for the Rio qualifiers."

Malik was sacked as the women’s wrestling coach only last year on charges that he wasn’t attending the national camp regularly.

But it wasn't long before he was appointed chief coach of the men’s freestyle team after the performance of his predecessor Vinod Kumar at the Asian Championships was deemed unsatisfactory.

Narsingh Pancham Yadav was the only male freestyle medallist in Qatar's capital after claiming bronze in the 74 kilogram category.  

Despite the disappointing showing, Kumar has been recalled from his suspension and appointed assistant to Jagminder.

"Jagminder has over six years of experience as the chief national coach," Tomar told The Tribune.

"He was the chief coach during the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi and, it was under his guidance, that Sushil Kumar won the gold medal in the 2010 World Championships in Moscow.

"We always wanted him to continue as the chief coach, but the demanding nature of his job as the ACP (Assistant Commissioner of Police) in Delhi Police did not allow him to spend enough time with the team.

"Now, that he's available, the WFI decided to immediately appoint him.

"The grapplers are happy with his return as the chief coach."

Tomar added that in the case of Prasad, WFI President Brij Bhushan Singh decided to remove him from his position due to the poor performance of the Greco Roman team at both the Asian Championships and World Championships. 

The team failed to medal at either event with Yadav’s 74kg freestyle bronze medal being all India had to show for its efforts at the latter. 

India won two medals at London 2012 with Sushil Kumar claiming silver in the men’s 66kg freestyle category and Yogeshwar Dutt taking bronze in the men’s 60kg freestyle.

Kumar won bronze in Beijing four years earlier, while the first of India's four Olympic wrestling medals came at Helsinki 1952 as Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav rounded out the men's freestyle bantamweight podium.