Ongoing Sochi Issues Thread

[morgin]

Take with a grain of salt given it's gizmodo, but:

http://gizmodo.com/sochis-olympic-vi...ash-1512657018

That's pretty brutal if true.

[undercoverbrother]

Distinct lack of snow, however I believe the IOC president will declare them the best games ever.

[morgin]

http://m.imgur.com/a/I06yQ

Better photos to show that the venues at least look nice.

[Cheese]

I know the Director of IT for Canada, hes been on site for 3 weeks. When he arrived he anticipated that all systems for the athletes and media would be ready to plug and play. He has been working 18 hour days actually making final connections and terminations to "attempt readiness". Says very little was terminated/completed. Many sites are not completed and will not likely be completed by the start...expect to see a lot of "window dressing".
The most poorly organized games he has seen.

[MissTeeks]

Not good for the media so far:

“@rcamcole: 3 a.m. Standing outside media hotel in rain. Zero organization, rooms not ready, confusion massive. Nice 1st impression, #Sochi14”

[Ashasx]

They Olympics should only be held in countries that can ethically handle/afford it.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

They Olympics should only be held in countries that can ethically handle/afford it.

Like Montreal.

[Barnes]

Will it be a disaster? It already is. Incomplete construction, piles of garbage everywhere, destruction and displacement of local homes, environmental destruction, mistreatment of workers, threat of suicide bombings, corruption, homophobia...

$51 billion. Bejing and London cost $52 billion combined.

At least they are hard at work fixing the issue of stray dogs in the streets by setting poision traps.

[pylon]

Yeah, I have a pretty bad feeling there will be something really bad happen at these games. Russia is just too corrupt. I could see the possibility of terrorists simply bribing their way into the security perimeter.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Barnes

Will it be a disaster? It already is. Incomplete construction, piles of garbage everywhere, destruction and displacement of local homes, environmental destruction, mistreatment of workers, threat of suicide bombings, corruption, homophobia...

$51 billion. Bejing and London cost $52 billion combined.

At least they are hard at work fixing the issue of stray dogs in the streets by setting poision traps.

And Beijing was already a bloated carcass which cost 3 times what London did.

[GGG]

At the start of Vancouver there was a steady stream of bad press saying it was a terrible games.

A luger died
There was no snow for freestyle skiing/snowboard events
Tickets were being canceled,
The Chiefs of the Native Bands were stuck in traffic and missed most if the opening ceremonies
There was fear of protests shutting down transportation during the games
The torch being blocked off to spectators by tall fences making the area look like a un food station
Wayne Gretzkys ridicuous ride to light the torch
The torch leg failing to deploy

And it turned out to be a fantastic olympics.

I think their are issues in socchi but the media loves a disaster story so we should wait until the games at least start before condemning them

And in the Gizmodo article it appears the major issues are a lack of grass and missing side walks. If that is all the smear piece can find then they are probably in okay shape.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by GGG

At the start of Vancouver there was a steady stream of bad press saying it was a terrible games.

A luger died
There was no snow for freestyle skiing/snowboard events
Tickets were being canceled,
The Chiefs of the Native Bands were stuck in traffic and missed most if the opening ceremonies
There was fear of protests shutting down transportation during the games
The torch being blocked off to spectators by tall fences making the area look like a un food station
Wayne Gretzkys ridicuous ride to light the torch
The torch leg failing to deploy

And it turned out to be a fantastic olympics.

I think their are issues in socchi but the media loves a disaster story so we should wait until the games at least start before condemning them

Those concerns aren't even remotely comparable.

The Olympics scare me this year. It seems like everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

Those concerns aren't even remotely comparable.

The Olympics scare me this year. It seems like everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Look at the gizmodo article that was designed to show how unprepared they were. It focused on garbage and grass, one unfinished hotel, and the volunteer housing. The big stuff got done.

Putin isnt going to allow the games to fail. People are overly worried due to some wierd combination of dislike of russia, old cold war politics, and a desire to see them fail. The media is definately anti russia so you need to look thruough that lens to interpret all stories

[nik-]

Originally Posted by GGG

Look at the gizmodo article that was designed to show how unprepared they were. It focused on garbage and grass, one unfinished hotel, and the volunteer housing. The big stuff got done.

Putin isnt going to allow the games to fail. People are overly worried due to some wierd combination of dislike of russia, old cold war politics, and a desire to see them fail. The media is definately anti russia so you need to look thruough that lens to interpret all stories

The pictures are cosmetic. The legimate concerns are exploding backpacks since the two terrorist hotbeds in Russia are closer to Sochi than they are to Volgograd.

[BACKCHECK!!!]

Seriously. Sochi is practically walking distance from Chechnya. I'm not sure if you've heard, but there have been some... unpleasantries... in the fairly recent past.

There are people in the region who think that the first day that elementary schools open is a good opportunity to have a running gun battle, round up all the kids into the school in a mass kidnapping, and then blow up the whole place, themselves, and the school, and the kids.

I'm not saying it'll for sure happen, but IF this Olympics is a disaster, it's not going to be because "there wasn't enough snow".

[Gaskal]

Originally Posted by nik-

The pictures are cosmetic. The legimate concerns are exploding backpacks since the two terrorist hotbeds in Russia are closer to Sochi than they are to Volgograd.

That's extremely unsettling, considering the attacks that happened last month. I expect pretty much every single counterterrorism special warfare unit around the world will be involved with security. JTF-2 helped to secure Vancouver 2010, I'd expect them to do the same this year.

At least 14 people are reported to have been killed in an explosion on a trolleybus in the Russian city of Volgograd. The blast comes a day after a suspected suicide attack killed at least 17 people in the same city.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by nik-

The pictures are cosmetic. The legimate concerns are exploding backpacks since the two terrorist hotbeds in Russia are closer to Sochi than they are to Volgograd.

Thats not what the above article was about at all. It was just a smear piece on Russia not being ready

I think a terrorist event is a legitamate concern but then it wont be first terrorist attack on a games . Atlanta killed 2 injured 111, Munich killed 11 so it wont be the first olympics to face terrorist threats. Before London there was widespread reporting of terrorist strikes being immenant. The risk of a successful terrorist strike in Russia is probably only marginally higher than London was.

The media loves to incite panic.

[Young-Sneezy]

is it just me, or does Russia look like an absolutely terrible place to be/live/visit?

[PIMking]

Well we all know that Russia will go nuclear with their military and profiling will be on the highest point.

With that being said this has atlanta and München all over again

[PIMking]

Originally Posted by Young-Sneezy

is it just me, or does Russia look like an absolutely terrible place to be/live/visit?

In soviet russia country lives in you...