9 reasons Putin is glad the Olympics are over

Russia ended the Olympics this weekend atop the medal count, with 33 total medals and a record 13 gold for the country. The head of the International Olympic Committee said “Russia delivered all what it had promised,” but most of what has caught people’s attention has been what Russian didn’t promise.

It’s been said that if the London Olympics were the first truly social Olympic Games, the Sochi Olympics were the first viral ones. It seems as if most of the news coming out of Sochi over the past two weeks has been the stuff that has probably given Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin a bit of a headache. Here are 9 reasons he’s probably glad to have the Games behind him:

1. Brutal hockey loss

The Russian men’s hockey team was widely considered Russia’s great hope. To many Russians, the success of the Sochi Games largely hinged on the success of the hockey team. But the team fell apart, losing to Finland before the medal round and letting down an audience that had been expecting its first gold medal in the sport since 1992, when Russia competed as part of the Soviet Union.

“If we had just won the gold medal in hockey, we could have forgotten about all the other medals — everything else,” Olympic volunteer Salavat Fokin told The New York Times.

2. One ring to rule them all

“OK, enough with the Olympic rings,” you might say, but so might Vladimir Putin. The fifth snowflake failing to open into a ring was all anyone talked about during the opening ceremony and inspired countless Internet memes, overshadowing many parts of the Opening Ceremony that went off without a hitch.

3. They shoot dogs, don’t they?

A major storyline prior to the start of the Games was the extermination of hundreds of stray dogs known to wander the streets of Sochi. Hundreds of animals were killed in the months before the Opening Ceremony as shelters scrambled to rescue as many dogs as possible.

“We were told, ‘Either you take all the dogs from the Olympic Village or we will shoot them,’ ” Olga Melnikova, a charity worker who helped coordinate the rescue effort, told The New York Times.

4. Hotel of Horrors

The problems the athletes and reporters faced in their hotels may not have seemed like much compared to the other issues being faced in Russia during the Olympics, but the hashtag #SochiProblems only added to the perception that Sochi wasn’t ready to host the Games.

Trashed rooms, weird toilets and dirty water were only a few of the complaints that turned the attention from the Games themselves to what was going on behind the scenes.

5. World leader freeze-out

President Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French president Francois Hollande were among world leaders who declined to attend the Opening Ceremony of the Sochi Games to show displeasure over Russia’s human rights record.

Some prominent athletes, such as Olympic gold medalist Hermann Maier, refused to attend, while countries including the U.S. made it a point to include openly gay athletes in their official delegations following the passage of laws criminalizing “gay propaganda.”

6. Protests

What got even more attention than the freeze-out, though, was the response to LGBT activists’ protests of the new laws. Activists protesting the laws were attacked in the streets, in many cases while Russian police looked on.

On the opening day of the Olympics, four protesters who unfurled a banner quoting the Olympic Charter’s ban on discrimination were arrested. While the Olympic venues themselves have largely become a safe haven, gays outside of the venues told the Washington Post they feel more vulnerable than ever, despite the attention the Olympics have brought.

7. Pussy Riot

Members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot were attacked with horsewhips by Russian security forces last week after trying to perform under a sign advertising the Sochi Olympics. The group has feuded with Putin’s government for years and has come to symbolize for many the fight against Russia’s restrictions on human rights.

No arrests were made, although regional leaders promised a full investigation into the attack.

8. Tropical oasis

Even on the athletic side of things, Sochi has had issues. It was so warm during the Games that athletes complained the snow just wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, leading to sloppy jumps, turns and overall performances. Some said it was just plain dangerous, leading to more falls than many of them had seen all season as athletes struggled to land on the unfamiliar feeling slush.

9. Yet another figure skating scandal

It wouldn’t be the Winter Olympics without figure skating judges being accused of rigging the competition.

Russian figure skater Adelina Sotnikova took gold over South Korea’s Yuna Kim, but fans of the veteran South Korean skater believe their competition could have been fixed by judges looking for a home country win.

A petition was started to demand an investigation into the gold medal became the first Change.org petition to gain one million signatures within 24 hours, and was at nearly two million by Sunday morning.

Sotnikova’s win was a surprise for Russia, whose best hope for a figure skating gold had been 15-year-old prodigy Julia Lipnitskaia before she fell during her short program last week.

But Lipnitskaia’s fall wasn’t the only figure skating surprise at Sochi. Four-time Olympic medalist Evgeni Plushenko withdrew from the competition after being injured during warm-ups and subsequently retired from competitive skating entirely.

Contact Stephanie Grimes at sgrimes@reviewjournal.com. Find her on Twitter: @steph_grimes