India's approach to winter sport is frustrating, says Keshavan

Twenty seven years since his Winter Olympics debut with a borrowed sled in Nagano, Shiva Keshavan cannot help feeling that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

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The former luger knows what it feels to be the only Indian in an Olympic Village - he was a one-man team in the first two of his six appearances at the Winter Games.

Likewise, Alpineskier Arif Mohammad Khan was the only Indian at the 2022 Beijing Games in Beijing and could be again next year in Milan-Cortina, Italy.

"Fundamentally, nothing has changed," Keshavan told Reuters from Italy, the birthplace of his mother. "Fundamentally, we are still struggling to get off the starting blocks.

"Right now, (winter sport) athletes are coming up despite the system, not because of the system."