Olympian goof-up at Sochi!

The much-hyped Sochi Games lived up to the expectations of the prying eyes of the media, giving it a lot of scoops to suffice the daily fill. From goof-ups and controversies even before the Games began, to disputes regarding the choice of torch bearers, the Sochi Olympics saw it all.

Putin’s Games, as it is getting rechristened as, had already garnered a lot of attention even before the Games had started for the lack of effort put in preparations. If the world thought Sochi would make a dramatic comeback with a breathtaking opening ceremony, then they were wrong.

The three-hour extravaganza began with a major blooper. The five Olympic rings were supposed to float upwards and join to get illuminated and then break into fireworks. But then, one of the rings ditched the organisers and Russia, leaving the country red-faced. One of the rings in the form of a snowflake failed to float and light up, which resulted in the viewer’s getting to see only four of them, the last one remaining a snowflake. If this wasn’t enough, some of the channels decided it was time to wear the garbs of superman and get into damage control mode. They decided to chop off the live telecast of the goof up, and instead, play the rehearsal clip, in which the rings behaved perfectly well.  

But the embarrassment did not stop there. Russia decided against toeing the line, by choosing a torchbearer who hasn’t exactly been on the best of behavior. Former Olympic skater Irina Rodnina, who’s won an Olympic gold medal thrice, was one of the torchbearers, who was involved in a racist tweet that took the world by storm. She had tweeted a doctored picture of Barack and Michelle Obama staring at a banana.

While many people condemned this choice, the International Olympic Committee washed its hands off, saying that it is not responsible for the choice of the torchbearers, also trying to brush the whole incident under the carpet saying it was a ‘minor’ incident. However, what most people are irked with is the fact that she happens to be a very close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin also came under fire, as the US sent a delegation of many gay athletes, in a way, pinching Putin about his vocal anti-homosexuality stand.