Why a Canadian athlete deleting her Putin selfie tweet is important
On Friday, Russian president Vladimir Putin made the rounds through Olympic Village, dropping some diplomatic charm on the American and Canadian contingents. He drank wine with leaders of the United States Olympic Committee, posed for photographs and wished Canada luck at the Games - except in hockey.
During the tour, Canadian speed skater Brittany Schussler took what was immediately hailed as the "selfie of the Olympics," when she grabbed a pic of herself and the Russian leader side by side. She tweeted the picture, and cheekily mentioned her regret at not having asked him to be her Valentine.
A few hours later, the tweet was deleted, and Schussler expressed a different form of regret.
Canadian skater deletes Tweet of photo w/ #Putin in #Sochi, says "I was joking + in no way want to be misconstrued as supporting his values"
— David M. Herszenhorn (@herszenhorn) February 15, 2014
Schussler's actions, from beginning to end, act as a perfect metaphor for our own struggle to reconcile Putin's Jack Nicholson-at-the-Academy-Awards-like stature at the Olympics with the common perception of him in the West. We embrace him as a larger-than-life character when we see him as a spectator in the stands and parading around Sochi, but once he disappears from our television screen, our negative impression of him returns.
There are several reasons for Putin to have put so much behind his bid to host the Olympics in Sochi, but the most easily identifiable is the Russian leader's hope to make the resort city home to his yet to be determined legacy.
Never one to play favorites with the old guard politicians from what have historically been the nation's most important cities, Sochi is more likely to host state visits and international sporting events than Moscow or even St. Petersburg. This, as Putin's ongoing developments in the region receive frequent comparisons to an imperial project.
Perhaps the greatest competition at the Olympics won't be found in a single sporting event, but rather Putin's attempt to win over international hearts and minds for the sake of his own legacy. If that's the case, the $50 billion cost to host these games would represent the largest recorded public relations budget in history.