The 2014 Winter Olympic games in Sochi have finally drawn to a close and the focus on Russia is now shifting to its involvement in the Ukrainian revolution. But before we are forced to analyze Russian affairs seriously, let’s take one final lighthearted look back at some of the more bizarre aspects of Sochi that have sparked some very amusing conversations from all sides of the public forum.
First off, many journalists and athletes reported stray dogs roaming the once decaying resort town.
Either Russia has a dog problem or the international dog sledding coalition was so upset to find out that their event was cancelled that they decided to let some of their teammates wreak havoc on the masses of Sochi.
In fact, the stray dog problem was such an embarrassment to Russia leading up to the games that Sochi hired exterminators to kill the dogs, which has confirmed my suspicion that the Russians are cat people.
It would be remiss not to mention the many complaints of Sochi hotel guests. After being trapped in his hotel bathroom, American bobsledder Johnny Quinn was forced to break through the door.
The only thing that would have made his jailbreak any cooler would have been if Quinn had yelled “Mr. Putin tear down this wall!” seconds before bursting through the door.
Stacy St. Claire, a Chicago Tribune Writer, tweeted, “My hotel has no water. If restored, the front desk says, ‘do not use on your face because it contains something very dangerous.’” Less than an hour later St. Claire tweeted a picture of a glass of urine-colored water with the caption “I now know what very dangerous face water looks like.”
I suspect that Sochi may have used the same water for the ice skating rink, which would explain why the ice dancers’ costumes were all so luminous, almost as if they were radioactive.
Speaking of dangerous contaminations—Bob Costas’ eyes. After spending multiple days hosting NBC’s coverage of the Olympics, Bob Costas decided to step-aside because of an eye infection that was quite obvious to viewers and became progressively worse over time. Perhaps he had not received the same memo as St. Claire about the dangerous face water.
The most serious folly of Sochi is the allegation of corrupt Russian officials pocketing some of the $50 billion spent to transform Sochi into an Olympic village.
Russia is quite a different place in contrast with the US—if you couldn’t already tell from the “Nightmare Bear” of Sochi’s closing ceremony.
After Sochi, the silver medal for the strangest Olympics goes to the 1992 games, which held an event known only as “Solo Synchronized Swimming.”