Shiva Keshavan

Shiva Keshavan

nation

India

birthday

25th August 1981 (age 39)

place of birth

Manali , India

size

183 cm

Weight

87 kg

job

Entrepreneur, sports official

Career

discipline

Single seater

status

active

Medal table

AM medals

4 ×

2 ×

Asian Luge Championships
bronze	Nagano 2005	Single seater
bronze	Nagano 2008	Single seater
silver	Nagano 2009	Single seater
gold	Nagano 2011	Single seater
gold	Nagano 2012	Single seater
silver	Nagano 2013	Single seater
silver	Nagano 2014	Single seater
silver	Nagano 2015	Single seater
gold	Nagano 2016	Single seater
gold	Altenberg 2017	Single seater

Placements in the Luge World Cup

Overall World Cup ES

43rd ( 2014/15 )

last change: February 10, 2018

Shiva Keshavan (born August 25, 1981 in Manali , Himachal Pradesh ) is an Indian luge and sports official . He took part in the Olympic Winter Games six times and, as an Asian record holder, is the most successful winter sportsman in India. The "fastest man in India" is also the founder and president of the national luge association.

biography

Childhood and youth

Shiva Keshavan was born in 1981 to a Keralese and an Italian woman in Vashisht , a district of Manali . His parents had met in the late 1970s as backpackers in the Himalayan mountains . As a child he learned the skiing on wooden skis and used together with his younger brother the surrounding mountain roads on self-built carriage for street luge . The family was running an adventure sports company at the time.

In 1996, the former world-class tobogganer Günther Lemmerer , who was commissioned by the FIL with the search for talent, became aware of the boy in Keshavan's school. The 15-year-old was considered a talented skier, but had no ambitions for a professional career, which is why he accompanied the Austrian to a training camp. Among other things, the film Cool Runnings was shown there, which Keshavan claims to have inspired. Lemmerer recognized the Indian's talent and let him contest his first race in 1997 in Igls . Although he sustained a foot injury, the first trip raised hopes of an early start to the Olympics.

Sports career

At the age of 16, he qualified as the youngest toboggan in history for his first Olympic Winter Games in Nagano , in which he was the only Indian to take part. Almost 10 seconds behind Olympic champion Georg Hackl meant 28th place in the end. In the years to come, Keshavan took part in numerous international competitions, but, unlike the competition, was always dependent on rented or self-constructed sleds. From the beginning he financed his career through crowdfunding . After another Olympic participation ( Salt Lake City 2002 ) he won in the course of the Asian Luge Championships 2005 with bronze his first of ten medals. It was the first Indian winter sports medal in an international competition. After being at the Olympic Games of Turin had reached rank 25 his best finish in a major event occurs, Keshavan was forced due to lack of funds to pause for two winters.

In 2008 he signed a sponsorship agreement with Coca-Cola for the first time . After two further Olympic competitions ( Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014 ) and victories at the Asian Championships in 2011 and 2012, Keshavan was able to sign the American Duncan Kennedy, his own coach for the first time in his career. The first joint season 2014/15 brought the best World Cup result of his career with 42 points and a 43rd place overall. He also achieved his best individual result with rank 25 in Lake Placid . Because he could not raise the necessary financial means again in January 2016, he had to cancel his participation in the world championships at Königssee . In November 2017 he qualified again for the Winter Olympics - for the first time in his career with his own sled called "Red Demon", built by trainer Kennedy. After his sixth and last participation in Pyeongchang in 2018 , he is the second most experienced Olympic participant in his home country after Leander Paes .

Shiva Keshavan holds the Asian speed record in luge with 134.4 km / h, which earned him nicknames like "The Fastest Man in India" or "India's Fastest Man on Ice".

Others

In addition to his active career as an athlete, Keshavan is President of the Indian Luge Federation and is looking for talented young tobogganers in his home country. He repeatedly criticized the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and the Indian government for showing little interest in the financial support of their athletes, and in particular complained about the "winter sports apathy" of his country. In 2018 he received 1.5 million rupees from the Indian Ministry of Sports for the trip to South Korea .

“We have the natural resources, we're not a poor country, we have a big enough talent pool and there's a lot of passion as well but something is missing (…) We don't have the culture or the tradition of winter sports so I think I can fill in that role a little bit. "

“We have the natural resources, we are not a poor country, we have a large pool of talent and there is a lot of passion, but something is missing (…) We don't have a culture or tradition for winter sports, so I guess the role is one to be able to fill out a bit. "

- Shiva Keshavan (2018)

In the run-up to the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City , the Italian federation tried to recruit the Indian. In addition to all the sporting merits, he was offered a job as a police officer and Italian citizenship . Keshavan did not consider a move because it was his dream to connect Olympia with his homeland. After the IOA was previously involved in a corruption scandal, the toboggan runner had to participate in the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi under a neutral flag . In his sixth and last appearance under the sign of the five rings, he appeared in Pyeongchang for the fifth time as the standard bearer.

Personal

Keshavan is married and lives with his wife Namita and their daughter (* 2015) in his place of birth. He studied International Relations at the University of Florence and is fluent in English , Hindi and Italian . For training purposes, he relies on the martial art Kalarippayat as well as yoga and meditation for mental preparation. He names the Italian ski legend Alberto Tomba as one of his role models . In the summer he works in his parents' Italian restaurant as a pizza baker and waiter.