The opening ceremony for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi ended with a spectacular fireworks display and the traditional lightning of the cauldron on Friday as President Vladimir Putin used the occasion to showcase a new Russia to the world.
The ceremony hit a bump, however, when only four of the five Olympic rings materialised in a wintry opening scene.
The five were supposed to join together and erupt in fireworks, but one snowflake failed to expand.
But everything worked fine for Vladimir Putin, who was seen enjoying all five rings in a picture taken in his presidential suite.
It turned out that Putin had been watching the Russian national broadcast feed, Rossiya, which cut to a footage of the five rings working perfectly from the opening ceremony's full rehearsal. Many others around the world meanwhile watched the Olympic Broadcast Services feed that showed the failed fifth ring.
Producers confirmed the switch, saying it was important to preserve the imagery of the Olympic symbols.
Konstantin Ernst, executive creative director of the opening ceremony, told reporters at a news conference that he called down to master control to tell them to go the practice footage when he realised what happened.
"The rings were the most simple technological thing. We know all the world shows (the opening ceremony), and I can tell you that taking into account the technical difficulty of the so called high mechanics we are the first who did it. All the rest (except the rings) went well," said Mr Ernst.
