Sochi
milhayser | February 28, 2014Warm weather at the Winter Olympics played a major part in the $51 billion extravaganza. Greg Laden calls the Sochi games more of a "Fall Olympics" as competitors bit the slush on the slopes and the half pipe. At the Extreme Park, casualties among women outnumbered casualties among men by nearly 3 to 1. Why the gender imbalance? Greg wonders if the men's and women's courses are not suitably dimorphic, or if better training would make a difference. On The Pump Handle, Celeste Monforton takes the panoptic view with the official Olympic injury and illness surveillance system. During the last…
gregladen | February 11, 2014Everything is about ice these days, what with the Winter Olympics in full swing. Concerns that the temperatures at the mountain venue of Sochi would be problematically high have panned out; the lower parts of the downhill slopes are slushy and the bottom of the half-pipe is all bumbly wumply. Injuries and lost medal opportunities are mounting up every day, in part caused by the unusual "Spring" conditions.
We all know the Arctic Vortex has been sitting on the middle of North America, and this has caused near zero F temperatures, often as low as -20F, here in central Minnesota. The same…
gregladen | February 7, 2014It should have been a concern the day after Sochi won its bid for the Winter Olympic Games several years ago.
It is reported that authorities or private contractors are taking the street dogs off the streets in Sochi, in preparation for the Olympics, which start tonight. A friend of mine was living in Athens for the weeks before the Summer Olympics there, and she told me that authorities did the same, and that included summary executions, of the dogs, where they were found.
This has sparked outrage, of course.
I do have to wonder why the decision is made to remove these dogs, and in…
gregladen | January 30, 2014The Winter Olympics are just around the corner. They will be held in "Sochi," Russia. But as is the case with so many things in life, it is not that simple.
When we refer to the venue, we tend to mention Sochi in part because some of the events will be held there and in part because it is on most maps. But the Olympics will be held at more than one location, as is often the case.
The 2014 Winter Olympics, aka the XXII Olympic Winter Games will occur from the 7th to the 23rd of February in Sochi proper, on the Black Sea, and inland at Krasnaya Polyana.
Sochi is a resort city on the Black…