India will full 75 years of Independence this yr. Here's a collection acknowledging 75 nice sporting achievements by Indian athletes. Sportstar will current one iconic sporting achievement every day, main as much as August 15, 2022.
1998 Nagano Video games: Keshavan turns into youngest individual total, first Indian to qualify for Olympics in luge
Luge, thought Shiva Keshavan, was a pleasant sounding phrase. French in all probability.
It didn’t imply something extra to the 15-year-old resident of Vashisht, close to Manali, when he was informed that Gunter Lemerrer, an Austrian, was coming to Panchakula to conduct an introductory camp for luge on behalf of the Worldwide Luge Federation. (For the uninitiated, luge is a sport wherein you race down a snow slope, mendacity supine on a sled. Sure, luge is the French phrase for sled).
READ | 75 years of independence, 75 iconic moments from Indian sports activities: No 28 - March 23, 1980: Prakash Padukone wins All-England Championships
Shiva, who had already proven numerous promise in snowboarding, attended the camp and impressed the Austrian coach. A lot in order that he was invited to coach in Ingls, Austria. Remarkably, he qualified for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, the place he was the youngest ever qualifier in luge. He competed within the Salt Lake Metropolis Winter Olympics in 2002 as effectively. In Turin, on the twentieth version of the Winter Olympics, he had firm, not like the earlier two Olympics, when he was a one-man crew from India. He additionally went on to participate within the 2010, 2014, and 2018 editions of the Video games.
The 24-year-old, then, mentioned it was good to be a part of a crew finally. “It should make us stronger and we might have the ability to assist one another.”
Shiva believed India has the potential to do effectively in winter sports activities. “We have now 3000 km of the mighty Himalayas which is a dream for winter sports activities fans all world wide; we've got but to utilize this large useful resource.”
[Parts of this edited article by P. K. Ajith Kumar was first published in the Sportstar issue dated February 11, 2006]
