Apparently the historic Soviet Empire was on full glorious display during the opening ceremony:
Russia in the house. #Sochi pic.twitter.com/CLUy9FUzNo
— Rachel Bachman (@Bachscore) February 7, 2014
Who said the hammer and sickle were consigned to the past pic.twitter.com/xpXkWhefGq
— Philip Hersh (@olyphil) February 7, 2014
Along with Soviet Pravda as Russian State TV broadcasts a fake Olympic ring element due to the failure of the actual equipment:
SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Smoke and mirrors? Russian state television aired footage Friday of five floating snowflakes turning into the Olympic rings and bursting into pyrotechnics at the Sochi Games opening ceremony. Problem is, that didn’t happen.
The opening ceremony at the Winter Games hit a bump when only four of the five rings materialized in a wintry opening scene. The five were supposed to join together and erupt in fireworks. But one snowflake never expanded, and the pyrotechnics never went off.
But everything worked fine for viewers of the Rossiya 1, the Russian host broadcaster.
As the fifth ring got stuck, Rossiya cut away to rehearsal footage. All five rings came together, and the fireworks exploded on cue.
“It didn’t show on television, thank God,” Jean Claude-Killy, the French ski great who heads the IOC coordination commission for the Sochi Games, told The Associated Press.
Producers confirmed the switch, saying it was important to preserve the imagery of the Olympic symbols.
The unveiling of the rings is always one of the most iconic moments of an opening ceremony, and President Vladimir Putin has been determined to use the ceremony as an introduction of the new Russia to the world.
Konstantin Ernst, executive creative director of the opening ceremony, told reporters at a news conference that he called down to master control to tell them to go the practice footage when he realized what happened.
“This is an open secret,” he said, referring to the use of the pre-recorded footage. The show’s artistic director George Tsypin said the malfunction was caused by a bad command from a stage manager.
Ernst defended his decision, saying that the most important part was preserving the images and the Olympic tradition: “This is certainly bad, but it does not humiliate us.” (read more)
YOU HAD ONE JOB #SochiOpeningCeremony @sochiproblems #openingceremony pic.twitter.com/7MS5duuuHU
— °Meryl°Hall° (@merylevens) February 8, 2014
We'll take five! RT @mychelmiller: #sochiproblems The Commerative Tshirt. http://t.co/27vP6TXGjB
— HuffPost Canada (@HuffPostCanada) February 7, 2014
Kristinn Taylor – President Barack Obama left many viewers with the impression that he was stoned on drugs during his interview broadcast Friday night on NBC as part of the network’s coverage of the Sochi Olympics opening ceremony. The session with Bob Costas was taped Thursday by remote with Obama at the White House and Costas in Sochi, Russia.
This screen capture posted to Twitter by M. Joseph Parry shows Obama with droopy eyelids, bloodshot eyes and a droopy mouth. Parry commented: “Uh, I am pretty sure President Obama is high in this NBC sports interview.”
https://twitter.com/TheMikePerry/statuses/431954222242750465
Parry was not alone in his observation. Twitter lit up with user’s astonishment at Obama’s stoned appearance in the interview.
