By Marc Smith

Taking a walk with a friend enjoying the beautiful Vancouver sunshine we stopped at the local UPS Store on Nelson & Cambie to mail off a package. We walked in to a sea of video cameras from two local TV stations and a large group of regular folk with cameras. What did we walk into? A scandal maybe at the UPS Store?

Even better, we walked into what turned out to be an impromptu media scrum for star Indian Olympic Athlete Shiva Keshavan. Upon asking and following up with further research when I got home it turns out that  Mr. Keshavan was the worlds youngest Luge entrant ever to participate in a Winter Olympics (Nagano 1998).

The Manager of the UPS Store # 209 Mr. Paramjit Teja, who is known to the Keshavan family as “Uncle”, was instrumental in arranging all the hospitality needs for the friends and family that travelled with India’s Winter Olympic Star. Part of the entourage was 6 “super fans” from Italy that have followed and supported Shiva in his Olympic Dream since his performance in Torino’s Games in 2006. the energy in the store was quite a buzz.

I was lucky enough to capture almost 6.5 minutes of the interview between Shiva and the reporter from Shaw TV. I apologize for the sound quality but this was too good an opportunity to pass up. So please watch and enjoy. I was 5 feet away from an Olympic athlete days after his competition. What a great experience!

After the interview Shiva was asked what his plans for the rest of his stay in Vancouver consisted of. He said " I have two other colleagues/friends from India that are here to compete and I will be at their side and in the stands cheering for them and giving them all the support and wisdom I can share from my 4 Olympic experiences". An answer was truly worthy of an Olympian.

Marc Smith is Vancouver based event planner and will be reporting daily on various events happening around Vancouver. http://twitter.com/amuseconsulting