Flushed with pride after its athletes’ spectacular showing at the costliest Olympics ever, Russia celebrated last night with a visually stunning finale that handed off a smooth, but politically charged Winter Games to their next host, Pyeongchang in South Korea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, these Olympics’ political architect and booster-in-chief, watched and smiled as Sochi gave itself a giant pat on the back for a Winter Games that IOC President Thomas Bach declared an “extraordinary success”.
The crowd that partied in Fisht Olympic Stadium, in high spirits after the high-security Games passed safely without feared terrorist attacks, hooted with delight when Bach said Russia delivered on promises of “excellent” venues, “outstanding” accommodation for the 2,856 athletes and “impeccable organisation”. The spectators let out an audibly sad moan when Bach declared the 17-day Winter Games closed.
“We leave as friends of the Russian people,” Bach said.
The nation’s $51 billion investment – topping even Beijing’s estimated $40 billion layout for the 2008 Summer Games – transformed a decaying resort town on the Black Sea into a household name. All-new facilities, unthinkable in the Soviet era of drab shoddiness, showcased how far Russia has come in the two decades since it turned its back on communism. But the Olympic show didn’t win over critics of Russia’s backsliding on democracy and human rights under Putin and its institutionalised intolerance of gays.
unrelentingly upbeat
Despite the bumps along the way, Bach was unrelentingly upbeat about his first Games as IOC president and the nation that hosted it. One of Sochi’s big successes was security. Feared attacks by Islamic militants who threatened to target the Games didn’t materialise.
“It’s amazing what has happened here,” Bach said a few hours before the ceremony. He recalled that Sochi was an “old, Stalinist-style sanatorium city” when he visited for the IOC in the 1990s.
During the closing ceremony, performers in smart tails and puffy white wigs performed a ballet of grand pianos, pushing 62 of them around the stadium floor, while soloist Denis Matsuev played thunderous bars from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No.2.
here was, of course, also ballet, with dancers from the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky, among the world’s oldest ballet companies. The faces of Russian authors through the ages were projected on to enormous screens and a pile of books transformed into a swirling tornado of loose pages.
There was pomp and there was kitsch. The Games’ polar bear mascot – standing tall as a tree – shed a fake tear as he blew out a cauldron of flames, extinguishing the Olympic torch that burned outside the stadium. Day and night, the flame had become a favourite backdrop for “Sochi selfies”, a buzzword born at these Games for the fad of athletes and spectators taking DIY souvenir photos of themselves.
“Now we can see our country is very friendly,” said Boris Kozikov of St Petersburg, Russia. “This is very important for other countries around the world to see.”
rivals-turned-friends
Athletes said goodbye to rivals-turned-friends from far off places, savouring their achievements or lamenting what might have been – and, for some, looking ahead to 2018. The city where they will compete, Pyeongchang, offered in its segment of the show a teaser of what to expect in four years with video of venues, Korean music and delightful dancers in glowing bird suits.
Winners of Russia’s record 13 gold medals marched into the stadium carrying the country’s white, blue and red flag. With a 3-0 victory over Sweden in the men’s hockey final yesterday, Canada claimed the last gold from the 98 medal events.
Absent were six competitors caught by what was the most extensive anti-doping programme in Winter Olympic history, with the IOC conducting a record 2,631 tests – nearly 200 more than originally planned.
Russia’s last gold came Sunday in four-man bobsled. The Games’ signature moment for home fans was Adelina Sotnikova, cool as ice at 17, becoming Russia’s first gold medallist in women’s Olympic figure skating.
Not every headline out of Sochi was about sport. Going in, organisers faced criticism about Russia’s strict policies toward gays, though once they started sliding and skiing and skating, most every athlete chose not to use the Olympic spotlight to campaign for the cause. An activist musical group and movement, Pussy Riot, appeared in public and was horsewhipped by Cossack militiamen, drawing international scrutiny.
And during the last days of competition, Sochi competed for attention with violence in Ukraine, Russia’s neighbour and considered a vital sphere of influence by the Kremlin.
In an Associated Press interview on Saturday, Bach singled out Ukraine’s victory in women’s biathlon relay as “really an emotional moment” of the Games, praising Ukrainian athletes for staying to compete despite the scores dead in protests back home.
“Mourning on the one hand, but knowing what really is going on in your country, seeing your capital burning, and feeling this responsibility, and then winning the gold medal,” he said, “this really stands out for me.”
Source-AP
