From Alpine Skiing to Luge: India at the Winter Olympics

The Summer Olympic Games are well underway, and with India’s performance at the Olympics, this article dwells on how India performs in the Winter Olympics. India has been participating in the Summer Olympics since 1900 as a British colony, and in 1948, India started participating as an independent nation. However, It was only in 1964 that India began to participate in the Winter Olympic Games, which was 40 years after the beginning of the Winter Olympics. Let us look at the brief history of winter sports in India and also look at the constraints Indians tend to face, especially in the arena of Winter sports.

 

 

Indian Contingent (Arif Khan) at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games 

(Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/more-sports/others/india-moment-at-winter-olympics-opening-skier-arif-khan-leads-contingent-out/articleshow/89349504.cms)

 

As the name suggests, the Winter Olympic Games primarily focus on winter sports such as luge, alpine skiing, snowboarding, ski jumping, etc. As mentioned above, it was in 1964 that India started participating in the Winter Olympics, starting with a sole athlete representing India. The last Winter Olympics in which India participated was the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. India has only attended 11 times as a nation, and the Indian winter sports athletes tend to comprise 2-3 athletes, making the Indian contingent.

 

 

Arif Khan, skier

(Source: https://sports.ndtv.com/cricket/j-k-skier-arif-khan-qualifies-for-2-events-in-2022-winter-olympics-2679969)

 

This under-representation of Indian athletes at the Winter Olympic Games has been associated with various reasons. Some believe it is the lack of awareness towards winter sports due to the geographical conditions, as India is a sub-tropical country with limited access to sports such as skiing and luge. Some others also argue that despite the geographical limitations, structural issues such as lack of infrastructure surrounding winter sports are also causes for the under-representation of Indians in the Winter Olympic Games.

 

Arif Khan, the only skier who was qualified and selected for the 2022 Games, spoke about this very issue in a press conference; he said, “Winter sports can be a game changer for India” he also believed that the Himalayas could be used for purposes of sports as well as economic development as well. However, he also believes that despite the mighty Himalayas, Indians are either not accessing the sports due to financial constraints or believe sports such as skiing or snowboarding are more recreational tourist activities than competitive sports. He also highlighted a lack of winter sports structure and federations compared to other sports, which also hinders the development of winter sports among Indians. This also shows that winter sports in India have a long way to go before becoming mainstream.

ALPINE SKIING

 

The Winter Olympics include sports such as ice hockey, luge, ski jumping, snowboarding, alpine skiing, etc. As previously mentioned, India began participating in the Winter Olympics only in 1964, with the sole athlete as the representative, Jeremy Bujakowski. He was born in 1939 in Lithuania to Polish parents and lived in India till he turned 20; it was only after his move to the US that he was introduced to skiing. He was the first Indian participant in Alpine skiing event. Bujakowski participated in men’s downhill and, slalom and giant slalom in the subcategories of alpine skiing. In the 1968 edition, he ranked 53rd and 65th in men’s downhill and giant slalom events.

 

 

Jeremy Bujakowski at the 1964 Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria

(source: https://thebridge.in/featured/jeremy-bujakowski-indias-debut-winter-olympics/)

 

Only 20 years after this, India’s representation of the Winter Olympics returned in the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic Games. Three athletes competed in the Winter Olympics, including the first Indian woman participant, Shailaja Kumar. The other two athletes, Gul Dev and Kishor Rahtna Rai, participated in slalom, while Shailaja participated in women’s slalom. The only other woman athlete who participated in the Winter Olympics was Neha Ahuja, who attended in 2006, participating in women’s slalom.

 

In the 2022 edition of the Winter Olympic Games, Arif Mohammaed Khan participated in the slalom and the giant subcategories and was also the only Indian representative at the games.

 

 

Skier Shailaja Kumar at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics

(source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/more-sports/others/1988-winter-games-olympian-shailaja-recounts-her-fight-against-the-ice-and-odds/articleshow/89539067.cms)

LUGE

 

However, one of the most prominent Indian Olympians is Shiva Keshavan, who competed six times in the Olympics. Playing luge, a sport which the Olympics website describes as sport, “Athletes race down an icy track lying feet first on their backs on a specialised sledge, reaching top speeds of up to around 135km/h”. He started his Olympic journey at the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan and continued till his retirement at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games. All athletes before him specialised in some form of alpine skiing, while he specialised in luge.

 

 

 

 

Six-time Olympian Shiva Keshavan representing India in Luge

(Source: Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64509975)

 

ICE HOCKEY: FUTURE FOR INDIAN WINTER SPORTS?

 

There has been a pattern where there is a sizeable Indian participation in alpine skiing in the Olympics. However, sports such as ice hockey have also started gaining traction. Ice hockey is mainly played in colder states like Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh etc. Both men’s and women’s national and U-18 teams have been representing India internationally, such as the IIHF Challenge Cup of Asia. With the pace at which ice hockey as a sport is thriving and with the popularity it receives, it is quite possible that the Indian contingent in the future Winter Olympic Games might have ice hockey teams as well.

 

 

 

Women’s Ice hockey team

 

(Source: https://thebetterindia.com/169048/ladakh-women-ice-hockey-tournament-history/)

 

One of the significant concerns that the International Olympic Committee has been facing is how the threat of climate change and rapid global warming may impact how the Winter Olympic Games operate. In the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai, the President of the IOC said by 2050, there would only be 10-12 countries that would be able to host winter sporting events. Even though there have been solutions put out to resolve this issue, such as keeping a list of permanent hosts, there has also been an issue of the willingness of the host nation to organise the games and be a permanent host. Issues like these remind us that sports, like any other aspects, can be political; sporting events tend to show the gap between developed and underdeveloped or developing countries and how accessibility, awareness and economic conditions determine the chances to represent their nations at the international level. If one looks back at the time, it also highlights how colonialism and imperialism also affected how we view sports.

REFERENCES:

 

Luge: Olympic history, rules, latest updates and upcoming events for the Olympic sport (no date). https://olympics.com/en/sports/luge/.

 

Mukherji, B. (2022) 1 in 1.4 billion: India’s only Olympian wants his country’s woeful Winter Games record. https://fortune.com/2022/02/04/winter-olympics-india-medal-count-arif-khan-skiing-howlick, S., Mullick, S. and Sports, B.-H. of I. (2018) The Bridge – home of Indian sports. https://thebridge.in/featured/jeremy-bujakowski-indias-debut-winter-olympics/.

 

Nag, U. (2022) ‘India at Winter Olympics – Jeremy Bujakowski to Arif Khan,’ Olympics.com, 16 February. https://olympics.com/en/news/india-winter-olympics-history-athletes-list-qualify.

 

Vadukut, S. (2018) ‘The story of Jeremy John Bujakowski, India’s Winter Olympics pioneer | Mint,’ Mint, 15 February. https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/4psIJpO07WlAw5FCi85VML/The-story-of-Jeremy-John-Bujakowski-Indias-Winter-Olympics.html.

 

Wilson, S. (2023) ‘Steve Wilson: The heat is on,’ Olympics.com, 22 December. https://olympics.com/ioc/news/the-heat-is-on.