Winter Olympics and India

We are tired of complaining - complaining that a very few athletes represent the one billion population on the world's sports arena. Come every Olympics, we complain about the lack of infrastructure to train the athletes. Come tennis, we complain that Sania Mirza isnt doing enough about her strokes and that we need someone other than Leander Peas and Mahesh Bhupati to win medals for us.

And when someone out there is carrying the Indian flag, in games beyond cricket and tennis, the media sometimes manages to acknowledge their feat albeit in the smallest corner of the last page of newspaper. I wouldnt have known that India was being represented in Winter Olympics 2010 at Vancouver had it not been for the blog post at uberdesi.

TOI (Times of India) never even mentioned anything that came close to talking about Winter Olympics leave alone the atheletes taking part in it. Last night when I came across an article about accidental death of a luger, I went back to know more. Wasnt Shiva a luger according to the uberdesi blog post...

Hold your breath. India has 3 representations according to the official Vancouver 2010 website
- K. P. KESHAVAN Shiva; Sport:Luge
- LUNDUP Tashi; Sport:Cross-Country Skiing
- NAMGIAL Jamyang; Sport:Alpine Skiing

So if you are interested in seeing the Luger live in action (read up the description here), the first round of men's single events starts at 5 pm, PST on Feb 13 (today). Luge sounds adventerous for sure - it is like sledging (not the cricket terminology but sled riding), isnt it.

Way to go, India. Three is a good number for a country that sees snow in the remote pockets of north and north east.