Clearly the organisers of the Winter Olympics don't share my passion for doing as little as possible on Saturdays so it has been another action packed day. For example Victor An won gold for South Korea in the men's 1000m short-track skate, Alexander Tretiakov won gold for Russia in the men's skeleton bobsleigh and Kamil Stoch won gold for Poland in the men's ski-jumping to name but a few.
There was also a little bit of controversy for Britain's somewhat disastrous speed skater Elise Christie both on and off the track. Off the track Christie claims that she has been forced to quit Twitter after being bullied by horrible Internet trolls. This is clearly an attempt to forward the UK's agenda for introducing more government control over the Internet using the threat of cyber-bullying as an excuse. It was also though an attempt to provide a possible excuse for Christie's bizarre behaviour during the 1500m qualifier.
Christie was on course for a photo-finish with Italy's Arianna Fontana when she decided to skate off the track meaning that she failed to cross the finish line and technically did not finish the race. Far from being a mistake this was deliberate attempt by the British team to re-run the argument about Christies disqualification from Thursday's (13/2/14) 500m final. What happened in that race is that Christie was trying to over-take Fontana on the inside but ran out of room so was forced off the track and fell causing a crash the knocked over all but one of the other competitors.
The judges ruled that the crash was Christie's fault for leaving the track but the British team felt that it was Fontana's fault for failing to yield. To be honest it seemed to me to be a genuine 50/50 call but what tipped it in Fontana's favour was the fact that Britain had been attempting to attack the Russian hosts with an announcement by it's National Crime Agency that people should be careful using gay dating websites such as Grindr. The British team have announced that they respect the judges decision over the 1500m incident but in reality what I think they're trying to do is make Christie out to be something of a put-upon victim so if she screws up again in the 1000m event the judges will be pressured into cutting her some slack.
Not content to simply irritate the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with Elise Christie the UK has also linked up with the US for a particularly brutal publicity stunt in which UK pop-music Simon Cowell became a father with the American Lauren Silverman. My real given name is Simon so one level this was the UK and the US trying to find out if anyone still believes or is in any way interested in the long standing but poorly substantiated rumour that I fathered a child by raping a women. However beyond that the fact that Silverman was able to give Cowell around 12 hours notice that she intended to go into labour means that this child was either delivered by cesarean section or the birth was medical induced. Also it is widely rumoured that Simon Cowell is a homosexual who has likely never had sex with a women meaning that this child was likely conceived by IVF if Cowell was involved at all. As such this was intended to promote discussion about gay couples becoming parents through IVF treatment.
This will obviously please Russian gay rights activists as they campaign against the fear that homosexuality will destroy Russia through a falling birth rate. However to more homophobic ears this whole thing makes homosexuality seem even more unnatural and frankly a bit sinister. So once again this is the US trying to play both sides making friends with both Russia's ray-rights activists and Russia's homophobes possibly in the hope of uniting them in anti-government protests should Russian refuse to play ball on Syria.
At around the time that Silverman was giving birth Canadian born but US resident actress Ellen Page publicly announced that she was gay at an event to help gay teenagers. This was a clear attempt by the US to attract gay Russians by showing how welcoming and tolerant it is. I would say that this has become a daily event during the Sochi games but the truth is that the US has been putting out three or four of these stories a day. Seriously if they carry on at this rate by the end of the para-Olympics I pretty sure every single one of the roughly 350 million people currently living in the US will have come out as gay. My money's on Justin Bieber next.
All of this was in serious danger of being completely overshadowed by the fact that the USA was playing Russia in the men's Ice Hockey. This match was just a preliminary event so while not unimportant it is more about deciding how the knock-out competition would be organised rather then the competition itself. That didn't stop the big guns coming out though. On Friday (14/2/14) Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to the US team's hotel. I'm sure that this was intended as a friendly gesture supposed to symbolise how good the relationship between Russia and the US is now the Cold War is over. The only problem is that wherever the former KGB officer goes and whatever he does Vladimir Putin does come across as extremely intimidating.
Whatever the intention of Putin's visit it certainly had an impact because later on Friday Rihanna's CIA handlers were on their absolute best behaviour. With the Drake stunt happening last Friday (7/2/14) rumours have been swirling that Drake and Rihanna would be meeting up for a romantic Valentine's Day liaison. The most specific of these was that Rihanna would be going to Drake's private residence for dinner which would be very difficult for people to verify. Instead Rihanna and her friend Melissa Forde were marched off to a concert by the rock band Imagine Dragons that was being put on by Live Nation in Los Angeles that night. Although no official statement was issued it didn't take long for members of the public to start posting on the Internet pictures of a very bored looking Rihanna at the concert. Those images demonstrated both Rihanna's location and the fact she was nowhere near Drake.
Even the natural environment seemed to get in on the act with an overnight earthquake in the US state of Georgia. Although at just 4.4 this was only a small earthquake you don't normally get earthquakes in Georgia with I think only four recorded in the last hundred years. As I've explained the US state of Georgia provides an easy reference to the nation state of Georgia that went to war with Russia in 2008. So this earthquake seemed to be the environment demanding that both the US and Russia stop mucking about and start paying it the attention it deserves.
As for the game itself being too hungover to calculate the time difference I ended up missing the first two periods. From the third period though it was clear that being the early stages of the competition both teams were playing within themselves in order to avoid showing exactly good they are. However it was obvious that the Russians were the stronger team and apparently the US were completely useless throughout much of the second period. This presents a bit of a problem for the IOC because now a lot of people are keen to see Russia and the US duke it out in knock-out match, ideally the one for the gold medal. Unfortunately on this form it looks like the US may well struggle against teams like Slovenia and Canada meaning that they may not even make it into the knock-out competition. Also a lot of people have noticed that throughout Obama's Presidency whenever the US is faced with a challenge it simply runs away. Therefore with Russia so openly challenging them the US may well throw the contest.
Obviously it would be unfair for the IOC to try and manipulate games involving other nations but in this head to head meeting it was quite clear that the referees were doing everything in their power to make sure that the US would win and ideally with the full 3 points that would almost certainly guarantee them a place in the knock-out competition. So for example when the US went 2-1 up it came during a powerplay after a Russian player had been sin-binned on a curious hooking call. Also having equalised the Russians went 3-2 up only to have their goal disallowed because a US player had knocked the US net a few millimetres off its mounting which is an extremely strict interpretation of the rules. Even with this help the US still couldn't manage it in either normal time or extra time so the game went to a penalty shoot-out or "winning goals" as it's known in the Olympics. Eventually the US managed to win this epic shoot-out earning themselves just 2 points.
Also I can't help but think that today's fire at the UK's National Record's Archives was an attempt to promote discussion about not only about how I knew about the infamous "Doomsday Clock" that it currently my Twitter avatar but how the hell do I know anything about Ice Hockey?
Finally on a more serious note Russian skicross skier Maria Komissarova has today suffered a broken and dislocated back during practise. I find it extremely unlikely that someone who is as passionate about sport as your average Olympian would ever risk paralysing themselves for a publicity stunt but there is a possibility that the Russians may be lying about Komissarova's real condition. However I cannot see to what end so it seems that this is just an unfortunate and very serious accident and I'm sure everyone will be hoping Komissarova makes a full and speedy recovery.
21:35 on 15/2/14 (UK date).
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