Day 1, 2 and India

The 21st Winter Olympic Games is under way and even after 2 days, we have exciting performances, tragic moments and historic records made.

The Opening Ceremony was the first ever indoors at BC Place, temperature controlled at 70 degrees during the proceedings. Here, we get our first and often only look at our tropical and small nation athletes. We've profiled so far athletes from Mexico, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nepal, Pakistan and Bermuda. Each of these nations have sent one athlete to the games and it was those athletes who we saw on Friday night holding their nation's flag. Israel chose Alexandra Zaretsky, an ice dancer among a team of three Olympic veterans. The Brother, Christopher Papamichalopolous, of a Brother-Sister team held the flag for Cyprus.

The other big headline from the past few hours is the death of Georgian Luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili. It was the first death in Olympic competition since 1964 and the first luging death since 1975. As a result, his best friend and fellow luge competitor Levan Gureshidze has withdrawn from the competition leaving only Figure Skaters and Skiiers in Georgia's Olympic Delegation.


Luging has continued at the Olympics where we have "Chinese Taipei" (Taiwan), and India currently competing. Shiva Keshavan, pictured above and India's flag bearer for the opening is currently ranked 28th out of a field of 38th after two of four luge runs. Keshavan was born in the southern state of Kerala and took up winter sports in Italy during his university education. He began competing at in 1997 at the age of 16, was the youngest luger at Nagano in 1998. This year, he hopes to beat his best Olympic finish, 25th place set in 2006. In Vancouver, Keshavan as well as his three Olympic teammates, apline skier Jamyang Namigal and cross country skier Tashi Lundup, marched into the stadium with uniforms donated by the Indo-Canadian community in Vancouver. Maybe Russell Peters pitched in. We'll keep you posted on his progress, as well as Chinese Taipei's Ma Chih-Hung, through tomorrow.

India has had a long Summer Olympic history, with a dominant Field Hockey history. The national team has won eleven medals in twelve Olympic games between 1928 and 1980 and won 6 straight Olympic Gold Medals in Men's Field Hockey between 1928 and 1956, a record for any national team in any sport.

Finally, many of our tropical and small Olympic nations compete in downhill skiing, an even which was postponed till after Monday. Short Track Speed Skating has begun. We'll cover Hong Kong's female Speed Skater in the coming days. Nineteen year old J. R. Celski, competing for the United States, has also won a Bronze in short-track speed skating. He is half Filipino through his mother's side.

Let's hear it for India and all the athletes!