SOCHI, Russia - As an old Cossack snowboarder once said, you only get one chance to make a first Olympic impression.
So, I can report that with the 2014 Winter Games just hours away from its opening ceremony, our Russian hosts are making a first impression that features muddy unfinished landscaping, stray dogs being rounded up (and perhaps poisoned), thousands of police patting down every train passenger or spectator, plus an unresolved cloud of gay discrimination.
Oh, yes, there is also a downhill ski course that might be too hazardous. It caused a practice session to be cut short Thursday.
In other words, everything is in tip-top shape and spiffy to go. Just ask the boss.
“Russia has created a wonderful example for all Olympic Games,” Dimitry Chernyshenko, president of the Sochi Organizing Committee, told the media here Thursday.
Yes, the man actually uttered those words, according to the English translation in my earphone. In the auditorium, I pondered a followup question. But I chose to save my energy for the next pat down. After just two days, I am getting to know some of these cops much too well, if you know what I mean.
The Russians have definitely made a memorable first impression on me. Mostly with their bathrooms.
The other night when I checked into my hotel room, I was prepared to duck and cover. I had heard horror stories from other early-arriving journalists about accommodations that either were not completely constructed or plagued by discolored (and ice cold) water.
I must be the luckiest guy beneath the nearby Caucusus Mountains. My room has all the required elements assembled properly - even if the bulb in my bedside lamp burned out when I flipped the switch. And my bathroom? I absolutely love my bathroom.
Other toilet facilities here have become infamous on Instagram or Twitter feeds for either double-wide seats or shoddy plumbing.My bathroom is strange but beautiful. It is equipped with no hair dryer, but has two toilet brushes. There is also a built-in fire hose. Yes, a fire hose. It hangs on the wall behind the tank. I guess if Bob Costas starts playing with matches over at the NBC studio and creates a conflagration, I am all set.
I laughed at the bathroom setup. But frankly, it caused me to cut the average Russian citizens a break. Many of them are trying so hard - perhaps too hard, given the extra toilet brush and fire hose - to make these Olympics work.
And I think they will. Inside the venues themselves, construction is complete, even if the ground outside is in rough shape. I narrowly avoided stepping in wet concrete several times as I strolled around the Olympic Park and downtown Sochi.
But the athletes are all here and will doubtless put on their typical inspiring show. The 70,000 security and law enforcement personnel, tasked with keeping us safe, appear to know what they’re doing. The largely young Olympic volunteers have smiles on their faces and are eager to help. Russians can be unfairly stereotyped as dour and sinister. With their Eastern European accents, they all sound like James Bond villains.
That’s definitely true for Dmitry Kozak, the country’s deputy prime minister, who owns a voice deeper than the Black Sea in Sochi Harbor. Kozak, one of president Vladimir Putin’s chief aides, spent Thursday fending off tough questions - such as the one about those terrorist threats that have frightened many potential spectators.
Kozak said the worry is unfounded.
“In any sporting event on the planet, terrorism has the same nature,” he said. “The level of threat in Sochi is no worse than in New York, Washington or Boston. Based on information received from our intelligence services, there’s no reason to believe Sochi is under more threat than any city on the planet.”
Uh, wrong. Those other cities don’t have one of the world’s nastiest confirmed terrorist areas just 300 miles from here, in Chechnyan territory. It’s the equivalent of living in the Bay Area and having known terrorists in Los Angeles. In December, a suicide bomber struck a train station in Volgograd, a 12-hour drive away. Wednesday, I took a train ride from the Olympic Park into downtown Sochi. The security process - and pat down - was more intense than at the venues themselves.
Kozak was asked zero questions about the area’s hundreds of abandoned stray dogs, which roam the streets here freely but are being rounded up. But Kozak did address Russia’s law against “gay propaganda,” which has drawn almost universal scorn. There could be protests by athletes on the medal stand.
Scott Blackmun, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s chief executive officer, said Thursday that he just wants the Games to start and grab momentum.
“Once the competition begins, stories will be about the sports and athletes,” Blackmun said. “Not the other details.”
You know what they say about details, right? And the devil in them? Here, a devil of some sort seems to be lurking around every wet concrete corner. I’m prepared for anything. Everyone should be.
Now, if you will excuse me, I must go back to my bathroom and put out any fires.
Sports, Pages 18 on 02/07/2014