Australian snowboarder Belle Brockhoff "has revealed she has been subjected to hate tweets" hoping she would "break a leg and get locked in the slammer" because of her sexuality (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 2/17). ... British short track athlete Elise Christie "has deleted her Twitter account after reportedly suffering abuse following a pile-up during the women’s 500m final at the Sochi Olympics." Christie revealed she had been the target of ‘‘unpleasant’’ abuse on social media after the 500m race (SMH, 2/17). ... Sochi organizers said on Sunday that the Olympic biathlon men's 15k mass start at the Sochi Olympics "has been postponed until Monday due to poor visibility after heavy fog fell on the Laura centre." The race was first delayed by an hour, but conditions "did not improve" (REUTERS, 2/16). ... India "completed its return to the Olympic family on Sunday when its flag was hoisted at the Sochi Games," five days after the IOC lifted its suspension on the South Asian nation. New IOC President N. Ramachandran said, "Very, very emotional." (REUTERS, 2/16). ... Russian Olympic skicross racer Maria Komissarova "was in a serious but stable condition" on Sunday after breaking her back in a training crash at the Sochi Olympics and undergoing surgery. The 23-year-old "had a metal implant inserted" on Saturday during a more than six-hour operation. Surgeons said that they would "not know how successful the operation had been for three or four days" (REUTERS, 2/16). ... In a Japanese poll conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun, 70% of respondents said they would choose to add baseball/softball to the 2020 Tokyo Games, given the opportunity to select from one of the seven IOC-shortlisted sports (World Baseball Softball Confederation).
