Retaining coach is Shiva’s top priority

GURGAON: With the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea still two years away, India’s luge exponent Shiva Keshavan said that more than qualifying for his sixth Olympics, retaining former US luger Duncan Kennedy as his coach was his priority.

“My aim is to retain Duncan, who worked with me last year, as coach. We managed to make a much higher level of progress and also prepared a more sophisticated equipment, which is very important if you are talking about shaving off 6/10th of a second from your timing,” said Keshavan.

“Obviously, to have Duncan on board, he has a certain salary and I will have to make sure that I come up with that much salary. So, my target is to qualify and also to have him…crowd funding and companies such as Micromax are of great help,” said Keshavan after the mobile-manufacturing company signed him on Wednesday.

Keshavan has been the Asian champion twice but he said that in order to compete at the world level, one has to visit foreign countries to train on specific luge tracks. “It is a seasonal sport and ice training is only (for) six months. Rest of the workout com- prising gym, strengthening of specific muscle groups and mental preparation can be done here in India. But when it comes to training for bigger world tournaments, a luger should be well versed with the tracks. It is very much like Formula One where drivers know each and every detail about a certain track. So, a luger does well when he is well-versed with the track on which he is competing.”