The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics are starting this week and the opening ceremony will be live on NBC Friday and the network has continuous streaming of all the events on their main Olympic website and they have coverage on the NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, CNBC and USA and on Thursday events like snowboarding and figure skating will start things off before the official opening of the games from Russia.
The games in Russia have not been without controversy and while many of the structures and buildings are not completed yet, officials say there will be no delays and the competition for some events begins on Thursday ahead of the Friday Opening Ceremonies. The lineup for the opening show will only be on NBC and will not be streamed live and the network said that was due to respect for the spectacle and that they want to focus on the main event and that gives Sochi its jump off into the winter games. The official games start Feb. 7 and some events will be in Krasnaya Polyana and the nation is hosting the games for the first time since 1980 in the Summer.
88 are participating and over $50 billion has been spent to make it the most expensive and corrupt Olympics ever and terrorism threats have overshadowed things as well. The games in 2014 has a number of new events in competition, including mixed luge team races, biathlon mixed relay as well as the women's ski jump, men and women's snowboarding halfpipe as well as the ski slopestyle and snowboard parallel slalom. The games has nearly 300 medals to dole out and the top ones come from Alpine skiing and skating and the figure skating competition is expected to be one of the most intense of the games.
The United States will be looking to win the most gold medals again and this year the hockey competition should be great, as it comes after Canada defeated the US in Vancouver in 2010 and now they will be looking for revenge. Shani Davis is looking for another gold medal in his third straight games and that would be a nice story for NBC especially with Lindsey Vonn gone, while Shaun White will also have plenty of attention after he won gold late time out as well. Lolo Jones is with the bobsled team and this comes after she missed on medals at the summer games and it will be interesting to see how US athletes handle the issues regarding human rights and gay rights in Russia.
The games cost more than any other Olympics ever and somehow things are still not finished with a week to go and while Vladimir Putin claims the games will be the safest ever, he has no idea what will happen and after spending billions of dollars, the town of Sochi still has plenty of issues to work out. Workers are killing stray dogs and people that are gay are having their rights repressed, while low income residents of Sochi have mostly been ignored and forgotten about. Sounds like a true Russian Olympics.
Check here for the official schedule from NBC or for more on figure skating, the opening ceremonies and the TV schedule.