Olympic Games-50 Days to go
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SOCHI (Russia) - Fifty days exactly at the Winter Olympics coaster, lots of information, news and controversy to talk about. After turning off the torch, 44 times, the death of a 73 year old torchbearer, until the'' latest provocation by Barack Obama. '' But there is also a ... Special gold medal'', virtual, already won by'' Itallia. Read it to believe it!
Thursday 19 December 2013 11 minutes reading time
When the races begin, weather permitting, will likely be a different story''. At the moment, however, that most of the athletes, records and evidence, the Olympic Games Sochi 2014 make headlines for other reasons, politicians, mostly.
Meanwhile, there is no peace for the Olympic torch in Russia. After several accidents that have marked the path, a tragedy has marred the relay: a torchbearer has died of a heart attack in Kurgan, the regional capital of the Urals. Vadim Gorbenko, 73, former athlete and coach sports a native of the city, at the end of the 200-meter run with the torch in hand, after a brief interview with reporters, suddenly fell ill and died soon hospitalized in the hospital. Located less than two months from the Games Russians on the Black Sea, strongly desired by President Vladimir Putin as an international showcase for the country, the Olympic flame is extinguished at least 44 times in his long march through the immense Federation that also saw unprecedented steps such as the International Space Station. Arousing the laughter of the blogosphere and of the'' Russian opposition.
Recently, a torchbearer in Kostroma was burned hands, and on 13 December in the busby Iekaterinburg of his colleague caught fire while he was running.
To this was added the'' absence of many heads of state on the first day of the Olympics. There will be, among others, Barack Obama at the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, but the name of the representative of the United States is bound to create a big controversy. It is, in fact,'' s former tennis player and known gay icon Billie Jean King.
Com'' has long been known neither Obama nor the First Lady, nor his deputy, will be attending the opening day, one thing that has not happened since 2000. In addition, the U.S. delegation will not be any member of his government. Leading the American representatives, Janet Napolitano, former Secretary of Homeland Security, now president of the University of California''. But the mere presence of Billie Jean King, a member of the President'' s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, together with inter alia an'' other'' openly gay former athlete, the ice skater Caitlin Cahow, is a gesture that more than a thousand words launches a clear message to the government of Moscow, has long come under fire for its anti-gay policies.'s not the first time that Obama challenge on the ground of gay rights the Kremlin during'' last G20 that was held this summer in St. Petersburg, the American president has had a long meeting with representatives of the Russian gay community that for years has been fighting for their rights. A gesture of defiance to Vladimir Putin. The relationship between Obama and Billie Jean King has deep roots:'' in August 2009, a few months he took office at the White House, the president awarded him with the Medal of Freedom, for being the agent of change'' in the fight for the'' equality between the sexes. Founded in 1943, the King was for many years the number one world tennis, winner of 12 Grand Slam tournaments, and in 1987 enrolled in the'' International Tennis Hall of Fame. But it is best known for being the first athlete in professional sports to come out, declaring openly homosexual in 1981, after a legal dispute between her and her former partner Marilyn Barnett. "Within 24 hours, when I came out of the closet - he told many years later - I lost everything. I said goodbye to at least $ 2 million of sponsorship contracts and for years I had to play just to pay my lawyers. To the first three months I went to the red of $ 500,000. I was in shock. "But by that time very hard, times have changed. February 7 And will she, along with other sporting a'' lesbian, representing a president who more than anyone else'' s fought for the protection of the rights of homosexuals.
Finally, a circulating for days'' other important news, always in the background policy. It will be no amnesty for Pussy Riot and the former Yukos oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky? And 'the best hypothesis after Wednesday, December 4th the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, announced an amnesty within the year for the twentieth anniversary of the Constitution of the Russian post-Soviet era. Putin's announcement, made before the Commission for Human Rights of the Kremlin, seemed like a gesture of clemency to do to tone it down in preparation for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi 2014. But the president has remained vague about the boundaries of the measure, leaving in doubt whether the beneficiaries will truly be the protagonists of international cases such as the former oilman Khodorokovski, the two inmates still Pussy Riot (Masha and Nadia Tolokonnikova Aliokhina), or yet the opposition blogger Alexiei Navalni, the 'Arctic 30 "Greenpeace and the dozens of protesters arrested for the riots which had degenerated into a rally against Putin in square Bolotnaia last year.
'' But there is also good news all Italian. '' The South Tyrolean company Prinoth Italian Leitner Group - a world leader in the cable transport systems (turnover 2012: € 715 million) - will provide to Rosa Khutor, the location of the Russian Caucasus Western welcomes the Olympic Games in 2014, 62 groomer to a value of 15 million euro. "Having been in the race with the strongest in the world, this contract is our gold medal.'s Confirmation that there is extreme confidence towards the high technological quality of our machines, already , the protagonists of major sporting events in the past - says Werner Amort, president of Prinoth -. Now even the Olympic slopes of Sochi, which will compete on the greatest champions of the circus, will be prepared and developed in the best way by our groomer Made in Italy ".
Prinoth will be in Sochi with an important representation. The South Tyrolean company (in 2012 reached almost $ 200 million in revenue with 700 employees) will place its drivers and other technicians, who will pay service on the machines in action. "Our success - adds Werner Amort - is strongly determined by the investments that every year our Group carries in Research and Development. Few days ago, just in Sochi, during a rehearsal perfectly successful, even Mojca Ogris Schimberg, director sports Rosa Khutor, and Sergey Belikov, head races, had the opportunity to admire and appreciate the quality of our fleet. " The Leitner Group - which includes, in addition to Prinoth, even Leitner Ropeways, and Agudio Poma (ski ropeway), Leitwind (systems for wind energy) and DemacLenko (snowmaking) - has more than 3,000 employees . According to forecasts, in 2013 the Group's turnover will exceed 700 million euro share again.
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