2014-olympics - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
America's Olympic Delegation Is A Calculated Insult To Russia
For the last five Olympics, the U.S. delegation to the opening ceremonies has included either the President, Vice-President, or First Lady. Not this time, Russia. You get the President's assistant, and a few openly gay former athletes....
Olympic Torchbearer Briefly Lights Self On Fire
As former Olympic bobsledder Pyotr Makarchuk carried the torch through the Siberian city of Abakan on Wednesday, he spilled some flaming liquid fuel onto his jacket. It was promptly put out by his escorts, avoiding the worst Gazprom commercial ever. ...
Oh Look, Russia Is Brutalizing Its Olympic Migrant Workers
While we're all still worked up about Qatar's blatant mistreatment of the many thousands of migrant workers who will soon begin building infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup, here's a reminder that Qatar doesn't have the market cornered on turning international sporting events into humanitarian cri...
Russia Has Officially Banned Protests At The Sochi Olympics
Russia's official government newspaper today published a new presidential decree signed by Vladimir Putin that bans all protests or demonstrations in Sochi from one month before the start of the Olympics until one month after. Sorry, gays and sympathizers!...
Pavel Datsyuk Defers To Religion On Russian Anti-Gay Laws
When Henrik Zetterberg and Victor Hedman publicly spoke out against Russia's anti-gay laws, we openly wondered what would happen when reporters approached the NHL's Russian players. Well, here's one....
Two Olympic-Bound NHLers Speak Out Against Russia's Anti-Gay Laws
Tampa Bay's Victor Hedman and Detroit's Henrik Zetterberg, both locks for Sweden's Olympic team, have criticized Russian laws that ban "homosexual propaganda"ahead of the Sochi games....
Athlete Protests Against Russia's Anti-Gay Laws Have Already Begun
Earlier today at the World Championships in Moscow, two Swedish athletes offered up a subtle yet unmistakable protest against Russia's oppressive anti-gay policies ahead of next year's Olympics. But athletes remain split on the right way to speak out, or whether to do it at all....
John Amaechi Asks 2014 Sochi Olympians Not To Stick To Sports
Openly gay former NBA player John Amaechi penned an open letter to the National Olympics Committee and athletes competing in the 2014 Sochi Olympics on his site. He urged them not to ignore Russia's horrific anti-gay laws while they compete, but publicly speak out against them....
Olympic Organizers: Ugh, Fine. We Won't Kill 2,000 Stray Cats And Dogs
Getting a city ready to host the Winter Olympics is not an easy task. Stadiums have to be built, snow has to be hoarded, scores of innocent animals have to be mercilessly slaughtered. It's all just such an ordeal....
Worried About The Sochi Weather, Russia Has Begun Hoarding Snow For The Olympics
With the Olympics serving, in a larger geopolitical sense, as a jingoistic opportunity to laugh at everything that goes wrong, host cities sure spend a lot of time and money on the one thing they can't actually control: the weather. China reportedly seeded clouds before the 2008 games, so they'd exp...
The IOC Was This Close To Owning Santa Claus
Saturday, the Russian Olympic Committee announced the results of voting for the 2014 Olympic mascots. (They picked a snowboarding snow leopard, and a fluffy bunny and cheerful bear. They're boring.) But one of the 10 nominees didn't even make it to voting. Ded Moroz ("Father Frost"), the Russian ver...