Every afternoon, Olympic enthusiast Drew Berner tracks the talking points from the the day’s competitions. Here’s our recap of day one at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.
A Day of Firsts
It’s the first medal event of these Games, the first snowboarding slopestyle competition of any Olympics, and on day one Canada already has its first medal. Mark McMorris of Regina climbed the podium to collect bronze, joined by American gold medalist Sage Kotsenburg and silver medalist Staale Sandbech of Norway. The bronze takes that first-medal pressure off the rest of Canada’s athletes, but McMorris wasn’t happy about his result or the judging that led to it. With all that’s going on around these Games, controversial judging is the last thing anyone needs.
Canadian Sisters Dominate Women’s Moguls
Nineteen-year-old Justine Dufour-Lapointe of Montreal and her 22-year-old sister Chloe finished one-two on top of the women’s moguls podium, giving Canada its first gold and silver medals of these Games. Their oldest sister, Maxime, missed the final and finished 12th, making her the world’s most impressive “disappointing one in the family.”
U.S., Russia Team Up to Take Down Canada?
Speaking of scandals, how’s this for a conspiracy: according to French outlet L’Equipe, American and Russian figure skating judges have made a pact to keep Canada off the top of the podium. So far Canada’s entry in the team figure skating event sits second behind—you guessed it—Russia, while Canadian ice dancing gold favourites Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue finished the short dance in second behind—that’s right—the United States. Figure skating has a long, colourful history of corruption already, so keep a close eye on the U.S. and Russian judges’ scores when Canada is on the ice.
NBC Edits Tolerance Out of Opening Ceremony
Remember yesterday, when we talked about IOC President Thomas Bach’s message of tolerance? NBC went ahead and cut that part of Bach speech right out. NBC ignored criticism of its delayed coverage of the 2012 London Summer Games and again chose to only air the opening ceremony during prime time and with substantial editing. Let’s wait and see what kind of excuse they come up with—making room for more commercials, maybe?
About those rainbow gloves we spotted during the opening ceremony:
Some of us thought the Greek and Venezuelan contingents were raising colourful middle fingers to Russian anti-gay laws. Turns out, those gloves are official Sochi Olympic merchandise—if you look closely, the colours on the fingers match the Olympic rings. Some have suggested the Games organizers, predicting the appearance of rainbows during the games, preemptively tried to diffuse some of the rainbow’s political meaning by ensuring they’re omnipresent—whether that’s true or not, we can expect rainbow-wearers in abundance and any athletes looking to send a message will have to go to plan B.
—
