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The most well-known athlete from India at the Winter Olympics, Shiva Keshavan, is all set to feature in the first heat of the Men’s singles luge event in Pyeongchang, South Korea on Saturday.
Keshavan is appearing in his sixth and final Winter Olympics and was the first Indian to represent the nation in the luge event.
The veteran successfully completed six training runs at the Alpensia Sliding centre in the past few days. In his best lap, Shiva clocked a timing of 49.186 seconds, which was a bit slower than the leader.
Though he has been performing well so far, he revealed that he had suffered a hairline fracture on his right hand a few weeks back. In an interview with Sportskeeda, Keshavan informed about his injury and also admitted that he is taking a gamble by participating in the Winter Olympics.
Speaking about the venue of the event, Keshavan said that the track was very challenging and the competitors will have a tough time to get used to it.
Although it is no indication of how he will fare in the heats, here is how Keshavan fared in the trial runs:
Training Run 1:
Position: 15/20
Lap time: 49.186 seconds
Time behind leader: 1.391 seconds
Training Run 2:
Position: 16/20
Lap time: 50.022 seconds
Time behind leader: 2.074 seconds
Training Run 3:
Position: 18/20
Lap time: 50.281 seconds
Time behind leader: 2.502 seconds
Training Run 4:
Position: 16/20
Lap time: 49.574 seconds
Time behind leader: 1.698 seconds
Training Run 5:
Position: 35/40
Lap time: 49.218 seconds
Time behind leader: 1.421 seconds
Training Run 6:
Position: 35/40
Lap time: 49.500 seconds
Time behind leader: 1.546 seconds
Going by his timings during the training runs, realistically, one should not expect Keshavan will bring home a medal, but as he has already said, "I want to make sure I make some good memories, soak in the atmosphere and just be present and live it as an experience."
