The main feeling for visitors and residents is that the spread-out nature of the arenas and stadiums, and the still-unfinished construction, gives areas of the city the feel of ghost town. With Sochi the place to find just 300,000 people, nearly all infrastructure must be constructed from scratch. Whole residential districts were constructed. Many buildings were not finished at a certain time with the games - and possibly never shall be.
However, with the deteriorating economic situation in Russia, there could be an unexpected bonus for Sochi, with the winter ski season in the nearby slopes shaping up to be better than anyone expected. Also the event boost online sales and mascot sales. While using the rouble losing around 50% against the euro throughout the year, holidays in Europe are increasingly becoming prohibitively expensive to many Russians, and skiing breaks from the Caucasus could be thought of as an extremely affordable alternative.
Timely and topical post.
"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."
Can't watch it. 20 minutes of human interest stories for every 5 minutes of competition. Enough already. Televise the events. I don't care if the athlete's father was a one-eyed -proof reader who worked 20 hour days and still found the time to drive him 100 miles each day to practice. I really don't care.
I love the Olympics. I enjoy the human interest stories. I can't watch them all during the summer Olympics because baseball trumps any other tv watching, but I record the Olympics every night, then I can ff through all the ads and any of the human interest stories or preliminary heats that I don't want to watch.
I can knock out 4 hours of telecast in about an hour and a half.
I can't watch the Olympics because I feel too bad for the losers. For things like basketball or soccer or whatever, it's different. The Olympics is just a feather in your cap, there are bigger stages on which to win (the World Cup, NBA championship, et cetera). But for things like the running or swimming events, the Olympics is the pinnacle of your sport. The big time. The absolute top competition in the world for your chosen field. These people spend most of their entire lives training and sacrificing and working their asses off to get to the day where they can compete in the games...and then they lose out on a medal by an amount of time measured in literally hundredths of seconds. In less time than it takes a human being to blink, a decade or more of pouring your heart and soul into your goal is flushed away. I'd almost rather lose by minutes than think that maybe if I'd cut my hair a little shorter or worn thinner socks, maybe it would have made the difference.
you do know that most of the infrastructure in Sochi was built with slave labor, right? many died and many, many more worked to the bone and never received pay.
2 points on Brasil:
- the empty arenas and venues is embarrassing
- the idiot swimmers for the USA that claimed they were robbed by police will be a global embarrassment for the USA.
other names i have posted under: none
I know where you're coming from Youk. I feel so bad for the losers, mainly the ones who were expected to win or at least medal. It's crazy to think that an entire life's worth of work comes down to a performance that lasts minutes or even seconds. I still haven't gotten over Michelle Kwan being beat for the gold by fellow American Tara Lipinski.
That said, the joy of watching the winners, or even athletes who win a bronze and take home the first medal ever in that event for their country, makes up for it. I also take solace in knowing that many of the athletes who fall short of their goal the first time will continue to work hard and return for another Olympics. Many succeed the next time around.
Also, I believe all of those sports have yearly World Championships. While they are usually not played out on a big stage, the competitions are pretty big deals for the athletes.