NEW YORK ¨C The Sochi Olympics are supposed to give an enormous boost to Russia¡¯s global image and influence. After seeing how welcoming and modern Russia could be, who could hang on to stereotypes from the Cold War era or the mafia-blighted 1990s, or to more recent misconceptions of medieval, religion-driven tyranny?
If the lavatory incident is any indication, the games¡¯ organizers could end up flushing those ambitions down the toilet.
It all started Jan. 20 with a tweet by BBC journalist Steve Rosenberg. ¡°Seeing double in the gentlemen¡¯s loo at the Olympic Biathlon Center,¡± he wrote over a picture of two full, sit-down toilets installed side by side, with no partition between them. The picture was so absurd Rosenberg thought it merited a second tweet: ¡°Just to make clear, this is not photoshopped. You can see my reflection in the flusher.¡±
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