NAGANO, FEB 5: Indian luger Shiva Keshavan had not even heard of the sport two years ago and Bermudan competitor Patrick Singleton did not encounter snow before he was 17. Although they have little chance of winning an Olympic medal, their exotic background has helped them steal the limelight in the run-up to the Winter Games.After training runs at the 1,326 metres spiral ice track, television crews homed in on the pair, ignoring favourites such as Germany's Olympic luge champion Georg Hackl. ``It's good, we don't get much attention when we're competing in Europe. The experienced lugers don't mind our fame. Luge is like a big, friendly family and I think they respect us,'' said 16-year-old Keshavan.Keshavan and Singleton were both introduced to the sport two years ago through an International Luge Federation (FIL) scheme which recruits from warm countries. Keshavan, who learned to ski when growing up at the foot of the Himalayas, was selected for the luge training scheme by his boarding schoolteachers.``I arrived thinking I was there to ski. I understood I had been wrong when the coach appeared carrying a luge,'' the lone Indian participant said.To represent small and exotic Olympic squads can be frustrating. Keshavan and Singleton have no officials, coaches and assistants travelling with them, only their fathers. Both were initially refused entry to the Olympic Village because the necessary documentation had not arrived. Neither have been honoured by the standard village welcoming ceremony.Both Keshavan and Singleton insist they are serious about luge. ``It takes a lot of experience to make it big in luge. But with seven or eight years of training and good coaching it should be possible to reach the top 10,'' said the 23-year-old Singleton. With racer reaching top speeds of 130 kph, luge is not for the faint-hearted.But the Olympic entry by youngsters who first saw a luge only two years ago raises the question of whether just any daredevil can don a skin tight costume, lie flat on asmall sledge and speed between curving walls of ice. Not so, Singleton said. ``You need to be extremely athletic, talented and with lots of feeling for the sport. And you need lots of courage. If you can't control the sledge it can be extremely dangerous,'' Singleton said.Singleton, whose British ancestors settled in Bermuda 400 years ago, watched the Winter Games on TV as a boy and wished he could take part one day. ``But the nearest I ever came to ice were the cubes in my soft drinks.,'' he said.His chance came when he was sent to boarding school in Scotland, aged 17. He had to wait for three months until the first snow fell in the mountains. It took a long climb to reach it but when he did he was hooked. Singleton, an avid golfer, said luge and golf have much in common. ``It's 95 per cent in your mind. The luge curves are like golf holes and if you lose your rhythm you're finished.'' Both Singleton and Keshavan insist they are serious about the luge.But money is the big problem. In the longer term, bothSingleton and Keshavan must find commercial sponsors if they are to continue with their sport. But winter sport backers are hard to come by in India and Bermuda.Keshavan and Singleton tend to finish two or three seconds off the pace in a run, an eternity in luge. But that does not mean they have come to the Olympics just for fun. ``The fun part will have to wait until after the Olympics. Right now we can feel only the pressure building,'' they said.
