Biting Cold

Driving west out of Sochi,where he negotiated his own bitter winter of challenging track-testing at the competition venue Sanki (Russian for sled),India’s lone Olympian luger Shiva Keshavan is convinced that the vision of white snow will happily haunt him for the next twelve months.

Keshavan’s fight with his frigid foe over the winter gone by,though,was less about his teeth chattering from brutal cold and more about them gritting through the obstacles that come with pursuing a freak sport in a country that’s currently obsessed with the sunburnt cracking of its brown cricket pitches. The two sports,in India,are as different as dark chocolate and feta cheese.

MANY SHADES OF WHITE

In the course of his globe-trotting for competitions,the 32-year-old professional slider has seen a dozen different shades of white,no two tracks the same. Just how different can one snow bed be from the next sheet?

Speaking from Italy,where he is camped to test equipment ahead of his fourth straight Winter Olympics appearance next year,Keshavan can tell the Sochi ice from the frozen water-bed of Nagano,Japan,where he won his second Asian title earlier in the season; and then tell Nagano from his favourite track at Winterberg in Germany,where he picked up his season’s best Top-20 position,on the back of a smooth slide on ice that was just the perfect temperature.

“I got a good feel of the Sochi track,and have collected enough data that will help me tweak my equipment. But the ice wasn’t cold enough,” he says,of what was the tip of his iceberg of problems this last season.

When his funding was cut short mid-season,the man from Manali was forced to part with his coach. Keshavan also lost out on a chunk of the competitive circuit,and as a result,having turned up for only three events,was slotted to go down last in Sochi’s test event starting order. “It’s difficult when you slide down last in the starting order — the frost gets set on the track and my starts were affected by up to half a second,” he says.

“A half-second delay at the start makes a huge difference in luge,and with just one set of equipment I know I still have to negotiate that track better.”

He’ll hope the ice is frozen just right when he treks to Sochi in November for a final testing and at the Olympics next year,and if it isn’t,then at least that his equipment will have evolved to factor in variable ice conditions. At Winterberg,the temperatures suited him best,but it is Sochi’s similarity to Japan — where he found success in Asia — that adds to his optimism of a better finish at the Olympics.

“Both tracks are closer to the sea,and the ice quality’s similar,” he explains. The Sliding Centre at Rzhanaya Polyana,Russia,located 60 km northeast of Sochi,isn’t too far from the Black Sea,and as such could be the warmest post for the Winter Olympics in Russia. The track starts at a height of 1365 m,making it the longest serpentine,though it’s said to be highly sanitised of all dangerous curves that saw luge get blood on its icy hands during the previous edition.

GETTING OVER VANCOUVER

An eerie silence had fallen over the Whistler Olympics track at Vancouver in 2010 after young Georgian Nodar Kumaritashvili died in a high-speed crash during a training run. Every smooth edged corner and turn of Sanki at Sochi carries a precautionary warning of that tragedy and while it’s still one of the fastest sports in terms of average speeds,men’s lugers are not expected to flirt with the heady maximum speeds that were achieved at the Whistler. “Track speeds had become a marketing gimmick in recent years,but things changed after Vancouver,” Keshavan says.

With athletes themselves getting faster,sliders didn’t have to rely on gratuitous gradients anymore. “But I admit that’s the first question we get asked all the time,” he says. “As an athlete you want to get over it and not let the fear cloud your thinking,but what it’s done is help athletes come together. Now,if a junior comes up to you,there’s the unspoken rule to help them.”

While Sochi might not punish eager rookies,the Sanki testing center’s slide is tipped to test every last sinew of the seasoned pros and the safety-first approach has also meant that the course-planners have thrown in a generous number of speed-breakers.

“There’s three uphill sections,which makes it very technical and keeps you alert. You have to work hard to regain momentum after the negative slopes. Also,there’s some corners and walls where the shoulder needs to be manoeuvred and you slim yourself,” he says. There is always one perfect line on the track that is the most economical to take,and Keshavan believes it will be a severe test of his experience of all these years. The Indian had topped his group in speeds in a test event last year,but knows the open curves — even if there are fewer tight corners — not to mention the three north slopes will need the deftest navigation of angles and not a speed-rush. “But it’s a lovely track; they’ve spent a lot of money to make it the best. It’s a marvel of engineering,” he gushes,clearly excited to go back in a year’s time.

LIFE’S TWISTS AND TURNS

But a year on the luge circuit for an Indian might seem like an eternity’s wait,and Keshavan is well aware that of the many things that can go wrong,a large number certainly will. Keshavan’s French coach Yann Fricheteau left midway through last season after non-payment of his salary and he was left to fend for himself. “A week before heading to the Asian Championships,our letter seeking funding was rejected. Yann had prepared an awesome plan,but we can’t expect results straightaway. We were in the middle of improving equipment when the collaboration ended. I’m perhaps the only luger in the world without a coach,” he says. He won the Asian title anyway,setting a new Asian record of 49.590 seconds.

All plans for a coach are on hold till he speaks to the Sports Ministry. The International Olympic Committee stepped in to rescue his international training camps,but IOC’s scholarship of $300 a month was hardly going to fetch him the $2400 a season needed for a coach. Even the Rs 10 lakh that Olympic Gold Quest committed to couldn’t bridge the entire gap,though it helped him travel to more competitions and take care of a decent sled that cost Rs 5 lakh apart from testing that set him back by a further Rs. 10 lakh.

“I can’t over-state the importance of a technical coach,because someone needs to help me put together my equipment and get a grip over that circuit. But I’m positive,” he says,echoing Russia’s famous optimism that stays hidden beneath layers of woollens.

In Russia,if you can’t afford suede coats,you make do with cheap cat furs. Everyone’s at the party,and no one sits at home. So,Keshavan too will ensure that he achieves the minimum requirements. “I needed to make the qualifying criterion — Top 40 to be eligible for the test event,which I achieved despite participating in only four of the World Cups.”

He made the cut at 37. This year he needs to travel to at least eight of the nine World Cups. “Maintain Top 40 till December in the first five events and then focus on getting a favourable seeding.” Starting order is all-important,as he learned painfully this year after some seriously deficient ice-time from a truncated season. “I came close to the Olympic record time,and then lost my coach and was back to square one.”

GETTING FITTER

What’s remained constant though has been Keshavan’s impressive physical conditioning through the ups and downs. Dr Nikhil Latey of OGQ,who did a physical assessment on Keshavan at the start of their sponsorship,was awestruck when he saw the luger do the full one-leg squat repetitions for a good 15 minutes. “Physically he’s in incredible shape and has great core and leg strength. He’s done whatever’s possible physically; it’s only the technical expertise where he needs help,” he says.

This summer then will be spent adding more body mass and training towards power,pace and musculation. Keshavan was assessed by a Swiss trainer well-known as Roger Federer’s conditioning man and has also been working with the trainer of the Swiss handball team to build on his explosive power. Just like a 100m sprinter,lugers need to generate their own power-packed acceleration.

“A luger needs power and pace for good starts after which he lies on his back and then it gets technical. You go down on gravity,but the sled’s navigation is through subtle manipulation of hand and leg muscles,which means that you need a very robust musculature,” Latey says. Over-training last season had caused a shoulder niggle,and the Indian will need to be careful to not let that recur.

Keshavan’s sled-board also boasts of plenty of trimmings but is nowhere close to what the world-beating Germans use,aided in their quest for the perfect steel alloys by the likes of BMW and Porsche. Meerut’s cricket bat manufacturers BDM are collaborating on the perfect wood for the couffin,but Keshavan’s keen on getting some wind-tunnel testing done on his sled for aerodynamics,as well as to check vibration so that not an ounce of energy is wasted. A friend from IIT was helping him fish out the most suitable steel alloys for different heights,friction and ice quality,but Keshavan wonders whether more can be done. Still,his efforts to put together a challenge will be appreciated in the host country where you are considered a “proper Russian” only if you’ve carved out a ski from the bark of the nearest birch and gone down the Alpine slopes,no matter what the financial situation.

RUSSIA’S COME-OUT PARTY

From his recce run in Russia,Keshavan reckons that this isn’t going to be just another Winter Olympics — certainly not for residents of that country. “It looks like it will be a grand affair. From what we saw of their preparations,it will be an extravaganza no less than Beijing’s summer show. Russians are really keen to put up a show,” he says.

From raising an entire city out of absolutely barren land to fortifying the strongest power-grid to converging a clutch of high-speed trains into Sochi,an erstwhile corner city of that vast tract of land called Russia,is planning on turning on the white magic of the Winter Games. In years to come,Sochi will also host an F-1 race and World Cup football matches.

Jimmy Carter denied Russians their glorious summer show in 1980 after the US boycott of the Moscow Games. He was 56 then. At 62,the former US president is believed to have held his first pair of ski poles. Promptly smitten,he went on to ski well into his 80s,and Sochi’s White wedding of 2014 might well find an unlikely admirer. An even unlikelier Indian luger,meanwhile,will be keen to make a mark at the Sanki Sliding Centre,in the world’s biggest cryogenic celebrations.

WITH AN EYE ON SOCHI

n Shiva Keshavan’s current Olympic ranking in 37th having participated in 4 out of the 9 World Cups last season.

n The highest speed a luger’s reached is officially 131 kmph and the average speed on the Sanki track in Sochi is 92.69 kmph.The three uphill sections at the Sanki track are a challenge because the amount of momentum lost in beating gravity is greatly increased on the negative slopes.

n Engineers are helping Keshavan with the equipment. Nalin (Agarwal),his brother-in-law is a mechanical engineer,Constant Sanciaumeis a materials engineer and another colleague of Nalin’s,Aiden Short are part of the engineering team. They are all alumni from the Imperial College,London.

n BDM bats’ Aditya (Mahajan) was a year senior to Shiva in school,and was approached to build the couffins — frame of the sled — that is generally made of wood.

n In Nagano,1998 Shiva was over two seconds behind the winner while in Turin,2006 he was under a second behind. “I have been within half a second of the fastest time during the international training week in Sochi,this winter,” Keshavan says.

n Keshavan is 83kilograms at the moment and is allowed to use 7 kg of additional weight (four in the weight vest and three in the sled). The total weight for each participant who weighs below 90 is 117kg,this includes 23 kg for the sled and four kg of clothing.