Your Guide To Sochi
The 2014 Winter Olympics Begin Tonight
We’re taking
a break from American politics today to bring you all you need to get started
for the 2014 Winter Olympics. The Games formally begin today, with the opening
ceremonies airing in the US tonight (on tape-delay) and the events going until
February 23rd.
1. The Best Sports Stories To Watch:
Who are the front-runners expected to dominate their events? Who are the
underdogs that have the potential to play spoiler? Did you know there are three
sisters competing together and against each other in the same event? Billy
Flanagan has all these questions and more answered in his rundown of the best sports stories to
watch this year. We’re particularly excited to see Cool Runnings, Volume 2.
2. How To Watch The Opening
Ceremonies: Alyssa Rosenberg details what you can expect to see during
the opening ceremonies, and analyzes the cultural context though which to
interpret them. She also goes back in time to remember some of the moments of
past opening ceremonies (who could forget when James Bond and Queen Elizabeth parachuted out of an
airplane together in London in 2012?)
3. Problems With The Facilities: The
Sochi Olympics are already more expensive than every other Winter Olympics
combined. And, as Esther Y. Lee reports, that is after migrant abuse and wage theft from those
contracted to transform the small resort town into a lavish winter sports hub.
But there is still startling evidence that the city is not ready for the games
to begin. Upon arriving to Sochi, many journalists and observers began tweeting
out photographs of hotels with stray dogs, brown water, bugs, and no light
bulbs. The course for one snowboarding event is being called “unnecessarily dangerous,” and Shaun
White, a leading American competitor, has withdrawn from the event. It’s hard to
disprove a photograph, but Russian officials have defended against these
accusations — by citing surveillance footage inside hotel showers.
So much for shoring up the confidence of foreigners…
4.
How Will LGBT Protests Affect Putin’s Russia? Much has already been made of Russia’s extreme
intolerance of gay and lesbian individuals. The Google homepage has even taken a
stand:
LGBT Advocates have been promising protests
during the games, and those are likely to get worldwide coverage. But will
Russia respond? The United Nations has formally condemned Russia’s anti-gay laws and has
explicitly stated it “oppose[s] the arrests, imprisonments and discriminatory
restrictions” faced by LGBT people there. Perhaps more importantly, will the
country change its policies in the future? Travis Waldron discusses these issues.
5.
Terrorism. Of course, everyone is hoping for a safe Olympics, free of
any violence or terrorist acts. News reports today confirmed that a Ukrainian
flight was hijacked (when the opening ceremonies were
live) by a passenger claiming to have a bomb, but it landed safely in Istanbul.
Obama has assured the safety of Americans in Sochi, but the issue is still
something that is causing some nervousness. Mother Jones has a good explainer on why.
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