Bluffers guide to the Sochi week that was

A look back at what made the news in the week leading up to the launch of the Sochi Games. The good, the bad and the down right hilarious. 

We’re off and running as all five, sorry four, rings lit up at the Opening Ceremony and the cauldron flame was finally lit.

Now we can get down to the business of competition after a week where #sochiproblems almost overtook #sochi2014 as the hashtag of the social media day and inspired the @sochiproblems twitter account.

The week started with the world’s media tweeting and posting bizarre and at times hilarious pics of their accommodation woes. One Russian official’s curve ball response was to claim he knows journos are trashing rooms because the Russians have surveillance cameras in each of them. Geez, spy much? That was rhetorical.

Though one Canadian journo went too far with his #sochiproblems and started bagging his free swag bag. Hashtag precious.

Then there was the talk about THAT slopestyle course. First Torah dissed it, then she loved it, then some guy called Shaun pulled out of it.

Australia’s national Olympic broadcaster appeared to forget the games started on February 6 with five Australian athletes competing in snowboard slopestyle and mogul qualifiers.

A lost opportunity for single Aussie girls looking for a Russian snowboarder as Alexey Sobolev put his mobile phone number on his helmet during qualifiers and was inundated with over two thousand texts with pictures by the time he got back to the Olympic village. His number was covered for the semi finals.

Google went global on the official games opening day, February 7 with rainbow coloured athlete icons and an ode to the IOC discrimination charter. Putin switched to Bing instead.

The Canadian luge ad for anti discrimination went viral, and rightly so with the tag line, the ‘games has always been a little gay, let’s keep it that way’. Gold to Canada.

The Opening Ceremony came and went with Toronto National Post journalist, Sean Fitzgerald, returning to his hotel post ceremony to give a blow by blow twitter account of an unexpected lock out in a faulty towers style security scenario.

Read his erudite commentary from the bottom up.

Day one of the official games and Torah Bright wasn’t happy for two sad reasons she posted on Facebook.

First her dismay that the IOC wouldn’t allow her to sport any Sarah Burke stickers on her helmet to honour her dear friend and the late and great queen of free skiing (and one of the main campaigners for halfpipe and slopestyle ski for the Olympics). She also touchingly revealed a recent tragedy to her fans that will give her more reason to win.

Security still remains a hot topic, some ridiculous some serious.

The Boxing Kangaroo flag hustled by big burley Russian in black outerwear, a boat load of yoghurt is waiting to reach American mouths with claims the sugar laden yoghurt is a protein supplement and a plane pirate (not pilot) attempted to hijack a plane heading to Turkey and take it to Sochi with claims of a bomb that never existed.

What will the next week bring? Will Roy & HG make us laugh, will Torah win the gold not once not twice but three times, will Shaun brave the halfpipe or run back home in fear?

Home page feature image photo credit: David Silveman/Getty Images