Official Sochi Olympics - Backes brings home 2 stray dogs

[sj-roc]

pretty sure that last red X is no writing on the walls.

No, the person is clearly marking a red X on the wall with a sharpie. If this were NOT allowed, there would be a second X overlaid on top.

[notahomer]

pretty sure that last red X is no writing on the walls.

No, the person is clearly marking a red X on the wall with a sharpie. If this were NOT allowed, there would be a second X overlaid on top.

It looks like he's climbing on it!!!

[WestCoastJoe]

Approved toilet sitting position. Do not stand while peeing (especially true for females).

No drinking from the bowl (OK no puking either) No standing on the seat in downhill tuck position while crapping (fear of disgusting toilet seat as on Russian train).

No pissing up into the air for show (no fishing either???) ????? What? No Hara Kiri in the bathroom with fat knife? No graffiti?
............

Dunno but the bottom right one looks like Do Not Write Graffiti or other Western stuff on the walls. You, American. You, Canuck. Especially no insults to our grand Czar Putin.

As noted it does also look like No Bombs in the Toilet (Enough problems with the sewage system already!) You, Terrorist.
.............

Well so far it looks like typical Russian inefficiency in the hotels, et cetera. How did these guys put Sputnik into space?

[WestCoastJoe]

http://www.canada.com/olympics/news/fis ... ts-coverup

Fisher: Massive garbage dump near Sochi Olympic site gets coverup

PHOTO: OLGA NOSKOVETS fileA stray dog walks alongside a garbage dump in Sochi National Park in a photo taken in 2011.
by Matthew Fisher
Feb 09, 2014 - 11:12 AM EST

SOCHI NATIONAL PARK, Russia — The Winter Olympics have been a grand television spectacle this weekend with dazzling mountain vistas and fabulous performances at the new ski resorts inside Sochi National Park.

Yet only a few kilometres to the west, on a steep hillside that is within the park’s boundaries, is a garbage dump of epic proportions. It leaches foul black dreck into a creek, the Bitha, that flows directly down to the Black Sea a few kilometres from a holiday dacha that Russian President Vladimir Putin frequently visits.

“I don’t think officials even know the word ‘ecology.’ Ecology for them is planting some flowers and palm trees within the Olympic Park,” said local tour guide Olga Noskovets as she wearily surveyed the colossal trash heap, which is mostly made up of building and household waste, tires and cardboard. It runs for about one kilometre along a ridge and in some places is nearly two metres deep.

“If you listen to the mayor and the governor, they believe Sochi is a purrfect city. I would like them to come here and make interviews in front of this mess. They are blind.”

Nevertheless, there were abundant signs of nature nearby. On a slope facing the wasteland, woodpeckers assiduously hammered away in a deciduous forest while stray dogs foraged under a thick carpet of leaves for voles and mice. A pond there that looks like it could be in the Muskokas or Lake of the Woods is said to produce superb fish, which grow to 10 kilograms or more, for food.

The dump sprang into existence only a few years ago as the massive building project got underway to prepare Sochi for the Winter Games. The wasteland that the Bitha runs through apparently does not include waste from the Olympic sites. However, heaps of dumped concrete and dirt produced by Olympic builders can be seen on the margins of secondary roads in the mountains near the finish line of the alpine, cross-country skiing and snowboarding events.

Locals believe that in order to maintain the ecologically friendly image of the Sochi Olympiad most of the Olympic trash has been trucked about 400 kilometres inland to the town of Belorechensk. Because of the same sensitivities, Noskovets, who has documented the development of the dump in photographs for several years, was convinced that site was closed four months ago. At the time, attempts to incinerate the garbage failed. Sand was then scattered on top of the detritus to mask the worst of it from drivers travelling on a major coastal road across the valley.

“This is the worst example of pollution near Sochi,” Noskovets said categorically. “There were protests, of course, but nobody paid any attention to them. Protesters tried to converse with the government and the park director, but police blocked their way. If you confront or defend the ecology in this city, you get in trouble.”

Admitting she was not a professional environmentalist, she said: “We don’t have the time or the money to take experts to examine this.”

Trucks dump garbage in a photo taken in 2011. Russian officials say ecologists’ complaints are groundless regarding a garbage dump in Sochi National Park.

Officials have sloughed off such complaints as groundless. Many of those who might have spoken to the media have been afraid to do so — because to do so might besmirch the Sochi Games, which are overwhelmingly supported by Russians.

Before the sand was put down, Noskovets said the stink from the dump could be smelled as far as 25 kilometres away.

But the toxic tangle here has attracted much less attention than the potential environmental consequences of a network of railway tunnels and bridges that delivers spectators to the formidable Olympic snow venues at Krasnaya Polyana. The engineering marvels and instant ski villages along the banks of the Mzymta River have required massive high-voltage power lines. All the added weight has created instability that may be lead to long-term avalanche hazards.

For Noskovets, what has happened at the Olympic sites and to the dump with its creek of black sludge are of a piece. Once the International Olympic Committee awarded the winter quadrennial to Sochi, such an outcome was always likely for some parts of the national park, which runs for 145 kilometres along and near the sub-tropical coast and reaches 40 to 50 kilometres into the 5,000-metre high mountains of the Russian Caucacus.

“Nothing in this time frame will slow the Games because nobody wants to break the Olympics,” Noskovets said. “To slow the decay in the future we must stop this now.”

[WestCoastJoe]

Garbage is strewn alongside a stream in a dump in Sochi National Park.

[WestCoastJoe]

Just watched the Men's Normal Hill ski jumping.

Pretty cool.

Kamil Stoch of Poland wins gold.

The athletes work hard for their results. And they inspire youngsters to achieve something in life. The politics, corruption and environmental damage are not their fault. And one hopes they do not fall prey to the use of drugs.

[South Pender]

To those of us in the West, the Sochi Olympics reveal wholesale corruption (really on an unprecedented scale), a somewhat barbaric culture, and a lot that is not too nice, but to the Russians, this is a huge success. I was reading a couple of days ago (and, damn, can't find the article to reproduce it here) that Putin's popularity throughout Russia is soaring as a result of having the games in Russia. So, from a political perspective anyway, this was a very smart move on Putin's part. It may well extinguish (or at least quiet) the protests against him and any doubts on the part of the ordinary Russian citizen that he's a great leader.

[TheLionKing]

We'll see about Putin's popularity when the Russian people gets saddled with the bill following the Olympics.

[TheLionKing]

Gold medal presentation

http://olympics.cbc.ca/videos/video/jus ... edals.html

[South Pender]

We'll see about Putin's popularity when the Russian people gets saddled with the bill following the Olympics.

Right. The popularity of most world leaders usually reflects the country's economy, and Russia's, while not quite in the toilet, is weak and stagnant. That, coupled with the LGBT protests and extreme unrest in the Ukraine and Georgia, might make for an interesting post-Sochi Olympics time in Russia. It will also be interesting to see whether the city of Sochi is sustainable post-Olympics.

[TheLionKing]

Canada wins it's 4th medal - silver in team skating.

[Rammer]

Canada wins it's 4th medal - silver in team skating.

Did I miss something in the long pairs program...the scoring wasn't broken down by judge as it had on the previous days. Combine that with the conspiracy theory about the Russian and American judges helping one another out, and perhaps CBC is adding to it by not showing the judging scoring, or they don't want to contribute to it. I would be curious as to how the two judges scored the Canadian and American long program as a 5 point difference from 1st to 2nd is like NHL to AHL ability. The 107+ point mark that the American pair received was a record score, so with the same routine they were able to produce their best result at the Olympics...makes you wonder.

[WestCoastJoe]

http://www.canada.com/olympics/columns/ ... -you-sochi

Arthur: We’re a little worried about you, Sochi
PHOTO: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty ImagesThe Russian flag is waved by a fan during the men's luge singles run at the Sanki Sliding Center on Feb. 9.
by Bruce Arthur
Feb 10, 2014 - 1:15 AM EST
Last Updated: Feb 10, 2014 - 1:52 AM EST

SOCHI, Russia — OK, Sochi, we were willing to let this go. The backlash against journalists noting the various imperfections in their hotel rooms was starting to grow, and journalists themselves were starting to tire of noting them, anyway. And some things got fixed! Thank you, Sochi. That was nice.

Yes, there are still strange bits of cultural sandpaper that are being gradually smoothed, but we are becoming very fond of the volunteers, who are full of life. One young Russian volunteer was doing card tricks at the bus stop the other day, dazzling some guffawing guys from Israel. They all try to help, and they’re wonderful. We are growing fond of Russians, truth be told. It’s making a lot of us grateful for the chance to see beyond our fears, our movie stereotypes, and find out about the rich and interesting people who live here. Fantastic.

But the little things continue to pop up. The system, really. I guess that was always the problem with Russia, in many people’s eyes: The system, rather than its people. Anyway. Arriving back at this reporter’s Omega 14 residence Sunday night, there was a note under the door. It read, in Russian and English:

Dear guest! Please do not put your personal belongings on the second bed. Otherwise we will have to give you a bill for the use of the second bed and Bedding. Signed, Hotel Administration.

So it’s gonna be like that, huh? I am keeping a suitcase on one of the little single beds here, and Postmedia has, as far as we know, paid for the room. This seems fair for all involved. But this takes some cojones, Sochi. After the hot water vanished for a little over a day, and after various reporters found rooms without shower curtains or actual curtains or doorknobs or working elevators or lightbulbs or whatnot? After reporters arrived to rooms that weren’t ready, or hotels that weren’t finished? Are you going to charge my colleague that had the … um … well … fresh semen on the second bed of her room when she arrived? Those sheets, sent for cleaning, have yet to be returned.

We were cool, Sochi. Even after Postmedia’s ace reporter Sean Fitz-Gerald arrived back at his room the other night, and inserted the key into the lock, as one does, and found the lock was in fact a different lock than the one he’d had for most of a week, and spent about an hour exploring the opaque strangeness of the situation, a hero in an unfathomable land, chasing a MacGuffin that would open his room, and which was eventually, inexplicably, found.

Even after that American bobsledder had to break his inexplicably locked cardboard bathroom door, and that British bobsledder found an open elevator shaft, and your vice-president said that thing about having surveillance cameras in the shower, we were getting past this.

Again: I’m not complaining, really. I’m not whining, whatsoever. I’m laughing, just like almost all of us have laughed from the start at the little absurdities, which are not products of the Russian people but its system, its strangeness, its differences. Differences are always a wonderful or confounding or fascinating part of any Olympics, and part of what makes it so great to cover. Again: We are starting to really like parts of you, Sochi. Thank your people for that.

But frankly, some of us are starting to worry about the longevity of this project. It’s the details, again. Like, the doors to the media centre bathroom were deemed out of order on Sunday. And the sliding front doors appeared to be struggling. And the chairs in the media centre appear to have been purchased for the one-time-only price of $9.99, as seen on TV. The arms are starting to fall off, and if you lean back too far you can pop the plastic shell right off the back. By the end of the Olympics, the media centre is going to be like the Hunger Games for chairs. And possibly journalists, but that basically happens in every Olympics.
RELATEDArthur: Ceremony shows Russia old, young, and complicated
Arthur: Dufour-Lapointe sisters balance competition and family
Arthur: Orange crush absent as Dutch sweep speed skating

The place just feels a little like Fat Tony from the Simpsons helped build it, and used sawdust instead of drywall. The caulking that’s cracking, the carpet that’s peeling, the doors that don’t work, or can get broken down. If this is a New Deal-style project, with an Olympic Park built over a swamp, then we are frankly beginning to worry a little bit about your $51-billion investment, here.

But we’ll all be gone in a couple weeks, with fond memories of Russians, and possibly a supplementary hotel bill chasing us to the border. Jeez, next thing you know you’ll be sneaking charges onto cellphone bills, or tacking on a fee for airline luggage, or charging a service fee on tickets, or asking for $5 to send a pair of socks from the hotel to the dry-cleaner, or …

Wait a minute. You sly dogs, you. You really are proper capitalists now, after all.

Whining? Complaining? How can one not notice such things? How can one not comment on such things?

Oh you Westerners, so spoiled, so much in shock when not everything is per-fect.

Somewhere in there is the reality. And Yes, I do think that in Canada, we are in Heaven. Seriously. As much as is possible on this little planet.

[WestCoastJoe]

The Canadian Press - Monday Feb. 10, 2014 07:18 ET

Charles Hamelin wins short track gold

Canada's 5th medal in Sochi

Results: Men's short track 1,500

Canadian short-track speedskater Charles Hamelin won gold in the men's 1,500 metres at the Sochi Olympics on Monday.

It could be the first of many for the Ste-Julie, Que., native, who is a medal favourite in his three other events.

He finished in two minutes 14.985 seconds Monday, edging Han Tianyu of China.

Hamelin is three medals away from becoming the most decorated Canadian Olympian ever.

Viktor Ahn earned the bronze, giving Russia its first-ever short-track medal. J.R. Celski, the 2010 bronze medallist from Federal Way, Wash., finished fourth.

As Hamelin entered the final lap in the lead, his girlfriend and teammate Marianne St-Gelais couldn't control her excitement, racing from her seat to the sidelines to give him a congratulatory hug.

The gold in the 1,500 was a bit of a surprise given it's not the 29-year-old's best event. He finished seventh in Vancouver where he won gold in the 500 and the 5,000-metre relay. He also has a silver from the 2006 Turin Olympics.

He has been virtually unbeatable this season, winning six World Cup races.

Francois Hamelin, Charles' brother, and Michael Gilday of Yellowknife didn't advance to the final. Gilday was disqualified in the semis and Hamelin was second in the B final.

In the women's 500 preliminaries, St-Gelais, from Saint-Felicien, Que., Jessica Hewitt of Kamloops, B.C., and Valerie Maltais of La Baie, Que., all advanced from the heats.

St-Gelais, Hewitt, Maltais and Marie-Eve Drolet of Chicoutimi, Que., also advanced in the women's 3,000-metre relay.

Awesome race. Charles Hamelin

Remember those days when Montreal hosted the Olympics, Calgary hosted, and Canada failed to win even one gold medal. Those days are gone. And the new trend started in Vancouver.

14 gold medals in 2010 for Canada. We won the overall Olympics, as the top gold medal winning country.

I gather the expectations are pretty high for Canada this year as well.

[WestCoastJoe]

A friend posted this little girl singing the Star Spangled Banner on Youtube.

Wow

Right up there with Whitney Houston's rendition.

Rhema Marvanne



Had to post it here.