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Britain's AJ Rosen - Source: Reuters -
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Olympic sliders, wearing black bands on their helmets, paid tribute to dead Georgian colleague Nodar Kumaritashvili on Sunday (NZT) when men's luge training resumed a day after his fatal crash.
"It is still fresh in our hearts today, of course," said Indian slider Kannan Palan Keshavan, the last man to complete a run on Saturday before the 21-year-old crashed at the final corner and was catapulted into an unpadded pillar.
"We are not able to compete with that same joy," he told reporters after completing the sixth training run of the event from the lower women's start as an additional safety precaution introduced by organisers.
"But we have to go on," he added. "The Olympic Games are here and we have to show to the rest of the world what athletes are made of.
"He was a competitive slider ... and we try to honour him and to compete, keeping him with us."
Keshavan, who races despite a back problem, said the sliders had met at the Olympic Village to discuss the next step.
"It was very hard yesterday," he told reporters. "After what happened, all of us had a meeting at the village and we thought of how we could remember him, how we could do honour to his memory and his ideals and what he fought for.
"Remembering him"
"Even going down to the opening ceremony was hard, everybody was trying to pull me up saying 'you have to cheer up, we are all remembering him'.
"It was nice that the president of the Olympic Committee and the mayor and everybody remembered him and we are doing the same today, we are all wearing black bands on our helmets. We will definitely keep him with us."
British slider Adam Rosen said it had been difficult to get back on the track.
"It's never nice to deal with that but we are here for a reason, we choose to do this sport so we just hope for the best," he told Reuters.
Kumaritashvili's team mate Levan Gureshidze, the only other Georgian slider, did not start the session but was present at the track and organisers expected him to take part in the day's second run.
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