1. Shiva Keshavan was born on 25 August 1981 and is an Indian luger.
16 Facts About Shiva Keshavan
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Shiva Keshavan was selected as a promising young athlete and went on to become the youngest person to ever officially qualify for the Olympic Games in luge, attending the 1998 Nagano games at the age of 16.
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In 2014, Shiva Keshavan walked as an Independent Olympic Participant at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Sochi due to the suspension of the Indian Olympic Association.
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However, later on during the Sochi Winter Olympics, Indian Olympic Association made a comeback as a recognized country by the International Olympic Committee resulting in Shiva Keshavan competing under the Indian flag.
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In 2014 Shiva Keshavan became the founder-president of the Olympians Association of India and is committed to support the Olympic movement in India.
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In 2020, Shiva Keshavan was appointed as the chief coach and the High-Performance Director of the national luge team by the Luge Federation of India.
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Shiva Keshavan now aims at promoting Winter Games in India, and creating an ecosystem to produce more athletes competing at the highest level.
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Shiva Keshavan often speaks in interviews about his struggles to finance his career.
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Shiva Keshavan gets most of his money from crowdfunding on the Internet and in the 2014 Sochi games, his uniform bore the names of 50,000 donors.
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Shiva Keshavan is the son of an Indian father from Kerala and an Italian mother, who met while backpacking in the Himalayas in the 1970s.
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Shiva Keshavan's parents run an Italian restaurant in Himachal Pradesh.
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Shiva Keshavan was born and brought up in Manali, Himachal Pradesh and attended The Lawrence School, Sanawar.
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Shiva Keshavan married Namita Agarwal, a former classmate at school, who is his sports manager.
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Shiva Keshavan studied humanities and political science at the University of Florence and received a Master's degree in International relations from the University of Florence.
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Shiva Keshavan spends time promoting the cause of winter sports in India; a grassroots level luge camp was held in India by Shiva Keshavan in 2009 for young athletes interested in trying the sport.
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Shiva Keshavan gained some fame after a training session during which he fell off his sled and yet managed to climb back on and complete the run; the video of the training run was shared widely on the internet.