Shiva ends 29th, flays officials

In his fourth Olympics, India’s Shiva Keshavan finished a creditable 29th in the men’s singles luge competition at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada on Sunday, reports HT Correspondent.

In his fourth Olympics, India’s Shiva Keshavan finished a creditable 29th in the men’s singles luge competition at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada on Sunday.

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Shiva clocked 3 minutes 18.473 seconds in the two-day, four-race event. He showed improvement in each run with his fourth and final attempt his best on the course.

Shiva finished 5.388 min adrift of eventual winner Felix Loch of Germany.

Shiva’s run in the Winter Olympics has nevertheless been praiseworthy considering the problems he had to encounter off the track. His sled broke down during pre-Olympic training. He was disturbed by Kumaritashvili’s death and also by a controversy over team’s uniform at the opening ceremony. On Monday, he clarified his position after Indian chef-de-mission RK Gupta blamed him for the controversy.

In an email to Hindustan Times, Shiva said the uniforms given to the team were of “horrible quality, bordering on disgraceful”. “On top of that everyone was not given the same uniforms and some were given none altogether,” he alleged.

Some local businessmen offered to sponsor the uniform but the team did not accept them when the media misrepresented the news as charity rather than sponsorship.