His friend, Indian luger Shiva Keshavan had not even heard of the sport until two years ago.

Although they have little chance of winning an Olympic medal, their exotic background has helped them steal the limelight in the run-up to the Winter Games beginning tomorrow.

After training runs at the 1,326-metre Spiral ice track, television crews have homed in on the pair, ignoring favourites such as Germany's Olympic luge champion Georg Hackl.

"It's good. We don't get much attention when we're competing in Europe. The experienced lugers don't mind our fame. Luge is like a big, friendly family and I think they respect us,'' Keshavan, 16, told Reuters this week.

Singleton, 23, whose British ancestors settled in Bermuda 400 years ago, watched the Winter Games on television as a boy and wished he could take part one day. "But the nearest I ever came to ice were the cubes in my soft drinks. I always wondered what snow would feel like, how it would taste.'' Singleton's chance came when he was sent to boarding school in Scotland at age 17. He had to wait three months until the first snow fell in the mountains. It took a long climb but when he reached it he was hooked.

Singleton and Keshavan were both introduced to the sport two years ago through an International Luge Federation (FIL) scheme which recruits from warm countries. In Singleton's case, it was by Bermuda's first Winter Olympian, the trailblazing Simon Payne.

Keshavan, who learned to ski when growing up at the foot of the Himalayas, was selected for the luge training scheme by his boarding school teachers. "I arrived thinking I was there to ski. I understood I had been wrong when the coach appeared carrying a luge,'' he said.

To represent small and exotic Olympic squads can be frustrating. Singleton and Keshavan have no officials, coaches and assistants travelling with them, only their own fathers.

Both were initially refused entry to the Olympic Village because the necessary documentation had not arrived. Neither have been honoured by the standard village welcoming ceremony.

Both Singleton and Keshavan insist they are serious about luge. "It takes a lot of experience to make it big in luge. But with seven or eight years of training and good coaching it should be possible to reach the top 10,'' Singleton said.

Singleton and Keshavan tend to finish two or three seconds off the pace in a run, an eternity in luge. But that does not mean they have come to the Olympics just for fun.

"We're not having fun yet. That will have to wait until after the Olympics.

The only thing I can feel right now is the pressure building,'' Singleton said.

Two days before their event begins at 2.00 a.m. Bermuda time on Sunday, the pair -- and other lugers -- were yesterday still trying to adapt to a unique challenge -- the need to race uphill.

In fact, the two inclines on the track could hold the key to the destination of the medals.

"This is the most technical, the most difficult track in the world,'' said Gerda Weissensteiner, Italian defending champion in the women's event.

The 9.3 billion yen ($75 million) 15-curve track enables racers to reach speeds of around 130 kph.

In line with the ecological concept of the Games, the builders followed the natural topography of the slope. As a result the ninth curve is followed by a 50-metre gentle uphill section.

The second rise, between curves 11 and 12, is trickier. It climbs 12 metres over a distance of 123 metres with an average gradient of 9.7 percent.

"This is the best track we've ever raced on, said top American luger Cammy Myler, also an Olympian for the fourth time.

But luge races aren't won only by being the fastest down an icy chute. What goes through a luger's mind -- or an opponent's mind -- can be crucial.

The mere presence of Hackl seems to have jinxed Austria's Markus Prock. While Prock has dominated the World Cup circuit for the last decade, Hackl has beaten Prock for the gold medal in the last two Olympics.

"Hackl has a little faster sled, for sure, but it's mostly in the head,'' said German luge coach Thomas Schwab.

Then there's sandbagging and poormouthing, both as integral to luge as those tight lycra suits.

Some racers sandbag during training runs or in races that aren't as important as the Olympics. One way of taking six-hundredths or eight-hundredths of a second off a time is to squeeze the runners, just as a skier might "snowplow'' to slow down.

Or, if they want to intimidate opponents with a faster time, they might heat their runners before a practice run, something they can't do in a real race.

The mind games of Nagano are already underway.

On Tuesday, the Austrians announced that they have developed new, more aerodynamic booties that could provide an edge in a sport that is timed to a thousandth of a second.

More Olympics, Page 14 PATRICK'S PRIDE -- Bermuda's Patrick Singleton speeds down the track during an Olympic training run for the luge yesterday.

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