Sochi 2014 Luge
Winner Germany's Natalie Geisenberger (C), second-placed compatriot Tatjana Huefner (L) and Erin Hamlin of the U.S. celebrate on a podium after the women's singles luge event at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, at the Sanki Sliding Center in Rosa Khutor February 11, 2014. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

The Wall Street Journal was both right and wrong in its medal haul forecast for the just concluded Sochi Winter Olympic Games 2014.

The influential business paper correctly forecast that the top winner would haul 33 medals. However, it predicted the wrong nation because host nation Russia was the one that got the 33 medals, while forecast favourite Norway was in third overall place with a total of 27 medals, and the U.S. is second overall with 28 medals.

YouTube/RT

However, in terms of its gold haul, Russia has 13, Norway 11 and the U.S. 9.

Some quarters, though, may question the authenticity of Russia's gold harvest especially over the controversial gold medal in women's figure skating which South Koreans believe should have been awarded to their compatriot.

In the run-up to the games, The Australian wrote that the big loser would be Russian President Vladimir Putin who weeks before the Feb 7 opening of the Winter Games, was under heavy criticism for the anti-gay law the country passed.

Days before the opening ceremony, embarrassing reports came out about twin toilet seats in one cubicle, lack of water in hotel rooms all the way to the failure of one Olympic ring to light up at the opening ceremony.

Now, on hindsight, The Sydney Morning Herald concedes that "despite the knockers, Sochi 2014 was a success."

Also big winners too are the 13 Russian athletes who got gold medals and soon €1 million each for every gold medal they clinched.

YouTube/Amnas2011

Non-medal haulers, such as the men's ice hockey team whom Russia was counting on the break a 22-year medal drought at the Olympics, were still lucky because Putin is the country's leader now.

A Russian volunteer pointed out, "This would be better if Stalin was here. He would cancel their visas, and they lost they would be thrown in jail."

On the minus side, excluding the barrage of toilet humour generated during the pre-games, there were two fresh doping cases on Saturday, hiking the total number of failed drug tests to four, namely: German biathlete Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle, Italian bobsledder William Frullani, Ukrainian cross country skier Marina Lisogor and Latvian men's ice hockey player Vitalijs Pavlovs.

YouTube/Osman Gurbuz

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