The five-time Winter Olympian secured the title in Japan after finishing the two runs with a time of 1min 39.962sec.

This put him nearly five seconds ahead of Japan’s Tanaka Shohei, who had a combined time of 1:44.874, while Chinese Taipei’s Lien Te-An clocked 1:45.120 to finish third.

Keshavan’s victory comes at the end of a difficult year for the 35-year-old.

He was forced to withdraw from the 2016 World Championships in Königssee in Germany due to a lack of funds and earlier this week, Keshavan broke his sled and suffered tendon damage in his left foot following a crash in training at the 1998 Winter Olympics venue.

Despite this, the Indian made the call to race anyway.

"I was determined to not let anything deter me from the gold medal this time, so despite all the obstacles, I decided to risk everything in the race," Keshavan said.

He is scheduled to participate at the World Championships, due to take place in Innsbruck, Austria, from January 26 to 29.