Sochi Games Expose Indian Corruption And Redemption

[jakeXT]

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For Keshavan, a five-time Indian Olympian, his training regimen is one of those improbable tales at the heart of Olympic dreams. In cricket-crazed India, there is nothing approximating a suitable luge run, or any facility favoring winter sports.

Instead, Keshavan relies on endurance training and the occasional death-defying roll down a windy, traffic-choked highway in his home state of Himachal Pradesh in the Himalayan Mountains. A promotional video shows him weaving in and out of cars and trucks, his sled on wheels. It all suggests the perils and creativity of being a Winter Olympian in a country where most people live in scorching conditions and consider the games alien.

Adding to the hurdles, Keshavan and two other Indian athletes are stateless at these games. Keshavan, cross-country skier Nadeem Iqbal, and Alpine slalom skier Himanshu Thakur cannot compete for India or use any Indian insignia. The three marched into Sochi's Fisht Olympic Stadium for the ceremonial parade of athletes Friday not under their tricolor national flag, but as "independent" participants competing under the Olympic banner.

Many Indians consider the awkward state of affairs "a disgrace" and blame their country's Olympic Association.

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http://www.npr.org/blogs/theedge/2014/02/08/273768974/sochi-games-expose-indian-corruption-and-redemption