Winter Olympics luge as it happened: Shiva Keshavan in 34th place after two runs

7.10 pm: A delighted Keshavan jumps over the barrier and joins a sizeable Indian spectator contingent to celebrate. He’s nowhere close to being in contention for a medal but it was never about that. The fact that he is participating in his sixth Winter Olympics, considering India’s apathy towards winter sports, is quite extraordinary. Remember, he had crowdfunded his way to Sochi in 2014 before finally getting some sponsors for Pyeongchang.

7 pm: A much, much better performance from Shiva Keshavan in the second run as he finishes with a timing of 48.710, which is just 1.085 seconds behind the track record of 47.625 set by Felix Loch. Keshavan ends the second run at 31st position, which pushes him up two spots to 34th in the overall standings. The 36-year-old’s overall timing is 1:39.288, which is almost four seconds (3.989) off leader Loch.

6.45 pm: Slovenia’s Tilen Sirse falls off his sled and loses valuable time but manages to get back on and complete the run! We’ve almost reached the end of the pack, with Keshavan slotted to go last.

6.25 pm: USA’s Chris Mazdzer jumps to fourth in the overall standings after a brilliant 47.717 in the second run! He’s now behind Loch, Gleirscher and Repilov on the leaderboard.

6.10 pm: We’re halfway through the second run and there’s still no one who has come even close to Felix Loch’s timing of 47.625. The German leads the overall standings after two runs as well, ahead of Austria’s David Gleirscher, Roman Repilov who is an Olympic Athlete of Russia, and Canada’s Sam Edney.

5.53 pm: Here is Felix Loch at the start of his second run. At the end of it, he was the track record holder and leader of the pile so far after two runs.

5.50 pm: Two-time Olympic champion Felix Loch sets a track record in Pyeongchang with a timing of 47.625 seconds! With that, the German has also taken the overall lead from Gleirscher. Incredible run, that!

5.40 pm: David Gleirscher won’t end the second run on top as Latvia’s Kristers Aparjods has beaten his timing with 47.834. However, Gleirscher still leads the overall timing across both runs so far.

5.35 pm: Run 2 is underway at the Alpensia Sliding Centre. Shiva Keshavan is slotted right at the end of the line-up and will be the final luger who will record a timing in this run. The leader from Run 1, David Gleirscher, has already put up an impressive timing of 47.835 but its slower than his first one. It will be surprising if the Austrian ends this run at the top of the pile as well.

5.10 pm: This is how the leaderboard looks at the end of the first run:

5.05 pm: Shiva Keshavan ends up 36th out of 40 sliders in the men’s singles luge Run 1. In a sport measured down to 1/1000th of a second, the two bumps he took at the start of his opening run cost him dearly. Keshavan ended up 2.926 seconds off the leader and will look to better that in the second run, coming up in a few minutes.

5 pm: Shiva Keshavan has a terrible start – he hits the wall twice before managing to control his steering. The 36-year-old is livid as his first run comes to an end, with a timing of 50.578 secs, which puts him in the bottom pile.

4.46 pm: Ukraine’s Andriy Mandziy falls off his sledge midway through his run but manages to get back on. He could only finish with a time of 1:02.935, which is almost certain to place him at the bottom of the pile, but that was a valiant effort to get back on after falling off, which prevented him from getting disqualified.

4.40 pm: We’re down to the last 10 sliders. Keshavan’s turn will be coming up soon (37th) but he’s got some competition. Austria’s David Glierscher leads at 47.652 and Keshavan wasn’t able to break into even the 48s in his training runs. As many as 11 sliders have so far clocked in the 47s.

4.20 pm: We’re halfway through the line-up of 40 and Austria’s David Gleirscher continues to hold the fastest time of this run. Behind him are German’s Felix Loch and Johannes Ludwig.

4.07 pm: And we’ve got a new leader – Austria’s David Gleirscher, who clocks 47.652! He has never won an Olympic medal before.

4.05 pm: The USA’s Tucker West, who holds the start-time record on this track, starts brilliantly but hits the wall later on to finish only at 48.484. Ten of the 40 lugers have completed their first runs and we’ve got two Germans at the top.

3.55 pm: Two-time Olympic gold medallist Felix Loch of Germany sets the fastest timing – 47.674 seconds. That’s going to be tough to beat!

3.50 pm: Wolfgang Kindl of Austria, up second, beats Pavlichenko’s timing by 0.382 seconds, finishing at 47.955. However, his record too does not last long, as Germany’s Johannes Ludwig times 47.764.

3.44 pm: And we’re underway at the Alpensia Sliding Centre! First up is Semen Pavlichenko, who is an Olympic Athlete from Russia. He finishes his first run at 48.337 seconds.

3.35 pm: The athletes are still warming up for the first run and the track is being iced. If you want to watch it live, you can find details here.

3.30 pm: There were some stunning photos from the opening ceremony on Friday evening. If you missed it, you can catch a glimpse here, including the entry of the Indian contingent. The highlight was, of course, this guy:

3.20 pm: Keshavan once again did the honours of holding the national flag as the Indian contingent, including cross-country skier Jagdish Singh, took part in a glittering opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics on Friday. Keshavan has held the Indian flag in all his earlier five Winter Olympics appearances either in the opening or closing ceremony. The 2014 edition was an exception as the Indian Olympic Association was under suspension.

3.15 pm: Keshavan will be starting the first run at 37th in the line-up out of 40. He was among the sliders who completed six training runs at the Alpensia Sliding Centre in the last three days.

Keshavan’s best lap time came in the first of six training runs, when he recorded 49.186 seconds. He finished 15th out of 20 participants and his timing was 1.391 seconds slower than the leader.

The Alpensia Sliding Centre in Pyeongchang is a very technical track, Keshavan had told The Field. “There are a couple of pretty tricky corners and combinations where there is potential for mistakes.”

The track was completed only a year ago, with the first test runs taking place last February, so there are still conflicting views within the luge community as to how best to manoeuvre certain curves and corners. “There is still room for error because people are still tentative about certain curves,” Keshavan had said.

Here is how Keshavan fared in the trial runs, although this is no indication of how he will fare in the heats.

3 pm: Hello and welcome to The Field’s live blog for the luge men’s singles runs 1 and 2 on Saturday, in which Shiva Keshavan is among 40 sliders competing for a spot in the medal round.

Keshavan, 36, has been India’s only regular face in the Winter Olympics since making his debut in 1998, when he was only 16 years old. Since then, he has taken part in six straight Winter Games, including Pyeongchang, which will be his final Olympic campaign.