The Sochi Winter Olympics Games in 2014 start up on schedule on Thursday night with snowboarding and skiing as the first events to go on February 6 and that comes before the official Opening Ceremonies on Friday and the events will be live streamed online from the NBC.com Olympic website and features athletes from a number of nations competing for the first time.
The first events to start are the Alpine Skiing and Snowboarding athletics and at 1 AM ET and 10 AM Russian time, the women's super-combined training will be going down, as will the men's slopestyle qualification and that is one of the most anticipated events of the games. The slopestyle in snowboarding has been added to the halfpipe and even though Shaun White has pulled out of the event due to an injury, it should start off as one of the best of the games.
The events on February 6 start up early in the United States and leading into the day on Thursday there will be more events going on past the men's slopestyle, including in Alpine skiing with men's downhill training and after that will be the women's slopestyle qualifications and that is scheduled for 5 am and after that will be freestyle skiing and for that the women's moguls start up at 9 am for qualifications. The day continues later with figure skating and that will have the team men's short program first at 10:30 am ET and then is followed by the team pairs short program and that is scheduled for 12:10 pm ET. The Opening Ceremonies are on Friday and that will be airing live on NBC and will not be streaming online, as the network wants to respect the work put in and wants it only broadcast live on television rather than online.
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The OC starts up on Friday February 7 and will be at 7:30 p.m. EST from Sochi's Fisht Olympic Stadium and while many of the venues and hotels still need to be finished and the games are extremely corrupt, Russia is ready to get them started to show how great they are and that will officially begin on Friday night. The stadium seats over 40k and that should be full on Friday and one of the top competitions will be without a star, as Shaun White pulled out of the slopestyle after dealing with a sprained wrist and now he will be down to competing for one gold medal as he tries to defend his gold in the halfpipe from Vancouver.
White said that he did not want to risk an injury in the event that would take him out of the halfpipe and while it was one of his stated goals to win two medals, he felt it was more important to stick with the one he had done rather than the new one. White was considered a favorite for the slopestyle with Mark McMorris and now the Canadian will be the favorite for gold. White is looking for a third straight gold in the halfpipe event and he said that the jammed wrist he suffered on the slopestyle course made it intimidating and thought this would be the best course of action. White is one of the top American athletes and now he will be in one less event.
Check here for the full NBCOlympics.com schedule for Thursday.
