From training on mountain roadways to competing as an independent, Indian athlete Shiva Keshavan’s road to the 2014 Sochi Olympics has been unconventional to say the least.
The 32-year-old from a small village in the Himalayas is competing in singles luge at Sochi.
Keshavan said that even though India doesn’t have the proper infrastructure to train, he uses what he can to practice his sport.
He prepares for the Games, not on an ice-covered track, but speeding down mountain roads.
“We don’t have a luge track in India, so to practice we modified the sleds, we put roller wheels on them instead of blades and we go down the only place we can, which is the mountain highway,” said Keshavan in an Olympic video posted to YouTube.
Keshavan credits the International Luge Federation for helping him get started in his career.
He was 16 years old when he qualified for his first Olympics – the 1998 Nagano Games – making him the youngest qualifier ever in luge. He was also the sole representative for India at the Olympics that year.
Keshavan remembers the opening ceremonies at Nagano as a lonely affair.
“I was walking in between Italy and Great Britain – two huge teams – and I was the only person in the middle, feeling quite left out actually,” he said.
“All of the sudden the Jamaican team comes up to me and tells me ‘hey man, we’ve got to stick together’. That gave me a sense that this was great. People from all over the world you’ve now met can bond with each other.”
Sochi will be Keshavan’s fifth Olympics. But this time around he will be competing as an independent athlete, rather than for India. The Indian Olympic Association failed to schedule elections for the country’s Olympic body before the start of the Games on Feb. 7, after being suspended for electing corrupt officials.
READ MORE: Indian athletes to compete under Olympic flag at Sochi
Kesavan told Indian media that not being able to compete under the national flag was “shameful and pathetic.”
“It is a sad and embarrassing situation that Indian sport has been put in,” he said. “People around the world know about the failure of our systems and about corruption and bad governance in sports.”
As part of a new partnership, Keshavan will be travelling with the U.S. luge team, who will also help out with coaching him.
Luge is considered to be one of the most dangerous Olympic sports, with sled speeds reaching 140 km/hour.
With files from The Associated Press
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