Why Day Negative 1? Because the opening ceremony is traditionally considered to be QISE Day 0, but events are inexplicably being held the day before.
First off, I heard this morning that Bob Costas is NOT going to anchor the opening ceremony on Friday. Not sure if that’s his call, or he has lost some support from the Peacock. Either way, I’m a bit disappointed, because he’s the only host willing to be sarcastic about it. The rest treat it like a parade, just reading the teleprompter—it’s Hooray for Everything!
Second, let’s get the time delay issue out of the way. Sochi is 9 hours off US eastern time, 12 hours off Pacific time. If you just spent billions getting QISE rights, as the Peacock did, would you show the marquis events live in the morning? If course not. If you can’t wait (and you happen to have cable or satellite), and don’t have a job, you can see most everything live on their website.
On to the evening’s festivities:
- Is Costas in the Peacock studio, or the Fortress of Solitude? Got a lot of glass and crystal going on here, not the normal faux-ski chalet look. I’m expecting Marlon Brando in day-glow white to drop by any minute.
- The inclusion of “Slopestyle” (which my spellchecker wanted to name “slop style”) makes it clear that the International QISE Committee is going to imitate the X-Games anywhere they can. It’s EXTREEEMMME! It’s also very dangerous, to the point where changes were made to the course at the last minute.
- I noticed Sochi’s slogan on the ski course—“Hot. Cool. Yours.” What does it mean? I have no idea—I think something is lost in translation.
- I’m glad (and a little surprised) that the anti-gay issues in Russia were mentioned, if only briefly.
- The new “Team Figure Skating” competition is like Hamburger Helper—a way to spread out a popular (and highly rated) event further.
Coming up next—the hysteria of the opening ceremony...