THE WINTER OLYMPICS, RUSSIA
When the U.S. Olympic team arrives in Sochi for the 2014 Winter Games (to be held Feb. 7--23), it will mark the first time that Americans will compete for Olympic medals on Russian soil. Moscow hosted the Summer Olympics in 1980, but the U.S. and more than 50 other countries boycotted those Games to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Not that next year's Games have been without controversy: both the event's hefty price tag (about $50 billion, making it the most expensive Olympics in history) and Russia's anti-gay laws have prompted criticism abroad.
But the Russian...