Pictures of broken doors, electrical wiring in showers and dirty water adorn the Twitter (News - Alert) feed @SochiProblems, a parody account that is cataloging all of the issues athletes and visitors are facing at this year's Winter Olympics. The Twitter feed also retweets complaints made by athletes and reporters about their conditions in Sochi, ranging from inconvenient and annoying to downright dangerous. What's truly staggering is that the Twitter feed has now attracted more than 324,000 followers (and counting), which is 120,000 more than the total followers of the official Sochi Olympics Twitter account.
The reports from the feed are astounding, showing stray dogs ambling about the city and even the events themselves, along with garbage and other pieces of debris strewn around the fields and streets. It appears that the Sochi Olympics are in dire straits, based on this Twitter feed’s accounts. The popularity of this feed amplifies people’s doubts about an already controversial Olympic year.
As the 2014 Winter Olympics continue, there is less buzz about the events themselves, and more about how woefully unprepared Russians seemed to be for the games. If things continue along this route, the Olympic games may not be remembered for how spectacular the events and athletes were. Instead, people are going to remember the glitch that caused the fifth Olympic ring to fail to release during the opening ceremony (pictured below).
Russia reportedly spent around $51 billion on the Olympics, but many are wondering where much of the money has actually gone. Though Russia built hotels for all of the athletes and reporters to stay in, many of them are only half-built and missing key components. The military may have been posted in and around the city to prevent terrorist activity, and an entirely new infrastructure had to be constructed for the Olympic Village, but Russia’s budget has far exceeded that of most other nations that have hosted the Olympics in the past, leaving many speculating.
Edited by Alisen Downey
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