Sochi 2014

[Holac]

Anyone looking forward to the games?

 

Opening Ceremony

The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

The opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics will take place at Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi, Russia, on February 7, 2014, starting at 20:14 Moscow Time.

 

[Holac]

This is our topic to post Olympic stories.

[Safferz]

Yes, I love the Olympics and I'm looking forward to tuning in for the opening ceremonies tomorrow. Let's go, TEAM CANADA!

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

When is Ciyaaraha Addunka? That is the only event I follow. Who watches and follows winter Olombigada than the insecure nations such as Kanada who can only appear to themselves big - if any - in a non-major event like this. Their media aad u buunbuuniyo this event. They are non-existent in real major sports events like World Cup and the real Olympics in the suntime.

[Hawdian]

I was Watching the SnowBoarding Qualifying Contest yesterday, freaking cool stuff. Sochi 2014.

 

[Mooge]

some somali kid is going there.

 

 

http://www.newspapers-online.com/auroran/?p=5285

[Alpha Blondy]

 

the bear mascot looks like Puntland's newly ''elected'' President Abdi Cawar.

[Mooge]

^ monkeyboy, stop insulting abdiweli niyoow isku xishoo.

[Holac]

Sochi Mysteries: Was the man responsible for the Opening Ceremony glitch found dead?

 

Yahoo - Throughout the Sochi Games, we'll be answering your most pressing questions, both thoughtful and ridiculous. This is one of those latter ones. Got a question? Email us and we'll get the Y-Team on the case.

 

Was the engineer responsible for the Olympic rings malfunction found dead?

 

If there's one thing more pervasive on the Internet than hack jokesters, it's gullible readers. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, folks ... except what you see here at Yahoo, of course.

 

By now, you've probably heard of or seen the technical glitch at Friday's Opening Ceremony. Five snowflakes were supposed to transform into the Olympic rings, and four of the snowflakes did their job admirably. The fifth, clearly, wasn't ready to leave the world stage.

 

Whoops! Ah, well. Embarrassing mistake, but it happens. Except: combine that with Russia's well-documented history for crushing dissent and perpetrating an image of superior stability. (Indeed, Russian TV didn't even show the glitch, opting to sub in rehearsal footage instead.) Presto: easy joke material about how the responsible parties would be sent to Siberia for embarrassing Mother Russia.

 

So when your mom forwarded you the article entitled "Man Responsible For Olympic Mishap Found Dead In Sochi," well, it seemed perfectly believable for such a sinister part of the world, yes?

 

"According to local reports the body of Boris Avdeyev was found his hotel room early this morning with multiple stab wounds," ran the report in The Daily Currant. "Avdeyev was a technical specialist responsible for the Olympic Ring spectacle, which embarrassingly malfunctioned last night ... Although his body was badly mangled and the wounds were consistent with a struggle, so far officials say they don't suspect foul play."

 

All right, if that last sentence didn't tip you off, as well as the fact that no other media source other than your Facebook feed ran this story, tell your mom: this is a hoax, people. The Daily Currant is a satire website specializing in snaring suckers with the stories they desperately want to believe (Example: "Marijuana overdoses kill 37 in Colorado on first day of legalization.") This one's fairly absurd, but enough people are reacting with that trepidation familiar to pro wrestling ("This has to be fake ... right?") that it's your duty to stamp out the falsehood.

 

So what really happened? The Telegraph talked to Konstantin Ernst, the creative director for the Opening Ceremony on Saturday. He offered a poetic defense of the mishap:

 

“Zen Buddhists have this idea that when you have a perfectly polished sphere, you should leave a notch in it so you can understand just how perfectly it is polished,” Ernst said. “In technical terms the rings were the simplest thing in the whole show. They turned out to be our notch ... This is certainly bad, but it does not humiliate us."

 

So there you go. Hoax debunked ... well, except for the fact that Ernst didn't actually say what did happen to the engineer responsible for the glitch. Hmmm ....

 

 

[Holac]

I love Russian drama.

[Nin-Yaaban]

So Somalis only participate in Summer Olympics and not Winter Olympics? Why is that?

[Holac]

Did Putin miss the Olympic screw-up?

 

 

It was the biggest glitch of the Olympics opening ceremony, and odds are Russia's president missed it.

 

Photos taken by The Associated Press show that Vladimir Putin, about to emerge into the Olympic stadium, was facing away from a monitor that showed the opening ceremony of the Sochi Games while it unfolded. He almost certainly didn't see footage of a glitch that prevented the fifth Olympic ring from lighting up.

 

Instead, Putin saw spliced-in rehearsal footage showing all five Olympic rings lighting up properly — imagery similar to, if not the same as, that seen by the rest of the Russian public on television.

 

The photos were taken Friday night by the AP's David Goldman, who was acting as the pool photographer for international news agencies and working in the presidential lounge where leaders had gathered in the runup to the ceremony.

 

In a sequence of photos shot by Goldman over several seconds, Putin, waiting to be introduced at the ceremony, is seen turned away from the only two monitors in the lounge and facing a wall of blacked-out windows and a single open door facing the stadium. He is looking down. Behind him and to the left, a big-screen TV shows four of five rings lighting up before it cuts briefly to black, then to a shot of performers.

 

After a few seconds, an image of all five rings illuminating properly then appears on the TV screen. Putin turns toward the monitor, faces it and looks up, seeing the footage of all five rings.

 

Moments later, he leaves the suite to face the crowd at Fisht Olympic Stadium.

 

The rings glitch was shown live on internal Olympic channels when it happened, but the Russian public instead saw spliced footage from one of two rehearsals, held Feb. 1 and 4. In that spliced footage, the Olympic rings lighted up just as planned during a moment that is always pivotal in opening ceremonies.

 

The image of the unilluminated ring drew scrutiny around the world and produced pointed comments on social media, where many had been questioning whether Russia was truly prepared to host the Olympic Games.

[Holac]

 

Angelic tear - Justine Dufour Lapointe