Sochi Winter Olympics Launches with a Festive Ceremony and Charged Team Great Britain
Across the globe television viewers saw the opening of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia on Friday evening with a festive ceremony. President Vladimir Putin made the declaration for the games to begin.
The opening ceremony did not go perfectly as planned however. The standout glitch was the display of five snowflakes that were supposed to metamorphose into the 5 rings symbolic of the Olympics. The fifth snowflake malfunctioned and did not become a ring.
It was a proud day for the Russian people as the head of the Sochi Olympics, Dmitry Chernyshenko, made the first speech of the games. He told the crowd of spectators, “We are proud to have the privilege to host the entire world.”
Out of all the nations entering the stadium, one in particular will get special focus because of their higher than usual expectations, Great Britain. Great Britain has hope for several medals in the winter competition. Included among the hopefuls are 13 freestyle skiers and snowboarders with Katie Summerhayes and James Woods ranked the favorites to win medals.
Great Britain has taken several initiatives to improve its winter team chances with an estimated investment of 14 million pounds into winter sports where they believe there is the potential for winning.
In fact, Liz Nicholl, who is the UK Sport Chief Executive, commented, “We have got more potential across more sports than we’ve ever had going into the Games.”
Over the next 16 days, nations will compete in winter sports with the closing ceremony scheduled for 23 February. Events will be held in 15 different sport categories with the total coming to 98.
The Sochi Winter Olympics have also been the focus of controversy with concerns about security due to terrorist threats related to the North Caucasus insurgency. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender athletes have also expressed concern over their safety due to Russia’s recent restrictions on these types of relationships.
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