SOCHI, RUSSIA—Leading up Friday’s opening ceremonies, officials for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi promised low death tolls for the games, assuring that fatalities would be at an acceptable level. “With an international event on this grand of a scale, casualties are inevitable,” said President of Russia Vladimir Putin, boasting that the winter games have had far fewer deaths than organizers anticipated since athletes began arriving in Sochi. “We are preparing for a completely reasonable amount of mishaps with the torch, mysterious disappearances, and collapsed stadiums.” While Putin did not want to entertain the notion of fatalities exceeding the tolerable threshold, he did offer assurance that the surrounding region had plenty of space available for mass graves.

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