Anti-Doping
 

Perhaps this room is used to collect urine samples from athletes for drug testing?

The chairs are for the observers to ensure that the athletes don't cheat.

I visited Russia like around 1998. I travelled a good deal of the world, and it was the most screwed up place ever. Even Zimbabwe had its act together much better. China was light years ahead.

Probably Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh are worse than Russia.

Throwing toilet paper into the bin is as foreign to westerners (and Americans especially) as the squat and poop systems. We really hate doing it, but most locations that request you not flush the paper have reason for requesting it - old pipes with poorly designed bends and curves that catch the material and back up accordingly. I do question why Sochi, in 2013 and 14 cannot design and build plumbing systems that won't allow toilet paper. Perhaps the sewage treatment plant is antiquated.

This problem of plumbing at Sochi alone, makes me glad we are not attending the Olympics there. Seems like different standards of plumbing even within Sochi.

I still cant believe we lost to Sochi... Pyongchang should have gotten it....

Where does zerolife live? does he have zero friends? How the hell does he come across so many people who do this in the US?

No you didn't, you said I suggested that the entire thread is born out of Russian bias. While that may sound the same to you, to me it is fundamentally different. I maintain that some of this is influenced (it's absurd to say it's all just anti-Russia - the problems listed are well documented and factual so deserve criticism) by such feelings, but it is ridiculous to suggest everyone (or even the majority) here is motivated by that.

The attendance so far has supposedly been 81% (92% including no-shows). That doesn't seem particularly low to me considering 1) it's in the middle of nowhere so has nowhere near the ability to draw crowds that Vancouver etc. did and 2) the Winter Olympics aren't overly popular anyway (as a global event).

Yes, they are "relevant enough" but aren't particularly damning. While not at an acceptable level, I've seen nothing to suggest athlete accommodation is so poor that it will affect their comfort etc. And as to dangerous slopes, you mean like Vancouver 2010 when an athlete was killed on the luge track? This is top-level sport designed to push people to their absolute boundaries - of course there are going to be risks. And as far as I know, these courses were all designed in conjunction with the world governing bodies of each sport anyway.

I'm not claiming these Olympics and the upcoming World Cup are going to be showcase events the world will talk about for years to come, but the constant sniping people make about them - particularly the people going on about how they are going to be "disasters" etc. - are wholly unwarranted in my view. Though I guess we'll have to come back to it once it's finished to see if that's correct or not.

Perhaps some photos are too sensational to be believed...

8 Viral Sochi Olympics Photos That Are Total Lies

:eek:

In all fairness, I really don't get the fuss about throwing toilet paper in a bin. Indoor plumbing is bad everywhere in the world outside of the US, Canada, Western Europe and Japan, and other select places. Wherever you go in Latin America, the Caribbean, or South East Asia, you are reminded to throw used toilet paper into a basket. Seriously, only people who have never traveled outside of the first-world countries can be surprised by that.

CBC toured the Canadian athletes accommodations on their broadcast last night. They couldn't find any substandard accommodations.

There is no damn way I am throwing feces ridden TP into the bin. That's disgusting from smell point of view and unhygienic. Like I said, if I am forced, I will use one big square of TP on the first wipe to get at least most of the waste matter into the toilet. One square will not clog the toilet.

As far as comparisons to SE Asia, a lot of those countries have water based alternatives.

And let's not forget Sochi spent 51B on these games. They couldn't find something in tha tbudget to design a modern plumbing system?

Sochi Olympics Hotel Nightmare
 

No toilet paper in the toilet?? I've had plumbers in the US tell me we would be better off not flushing toilet paper. Read the book, The Big Necessity by Rose George, which is a very interesting book about world sanitation. Seriously, it's fascinating.

Smell? Not really - I'm experienced FAR worse smells in "Western" toilets where you flush the paper than in bathrooms with a bin for the paper.

Unhygienic? Do you regularly shove your hands into bins then? If not, I hardly see how it's so unhygienic.

No, one square won't clog the toilet - but if everyone put one square down the drain then maybe it would eventually. Not that I really understand why you're so determined to keep telling everyone how you ignore the rules?

How much they spent is irrelevant. If it can't take toilet paper, it can't take toilet paper. Yes they SHOULD have designed it better but they didn't.

Oh, that brings back memories...Brighton in the 80's, with the freezing upward draft from those toilets...