Archives for January 10th, 2006

Eurosport’s best guess as to where Kranjska Gora is. (Thanks Seba!)

The small Slovenian resort of Kranjska Gora hosts a giant slalom every year, drawing the attention of sports reporters from around the world. Unfortunately, whenever journalism and Slovenia mix, geographic mayhem is never far behind. Enter Eurosport, and their depiction of Kranjska Gora somewhere north of Prague. (As a sidenote: Isn’t the Polish city spelled Wroclaw with an "L"? I feel like another point should be deducted from their overall score.)

Otherwise, only minor problems: The Guardian misspells it as Kranska Gora, and The Scotsman thinks Slovenia has less than a million inhabitants. But perhaps most baffling of all, and certainly the most inexcusable: The official tourist organization of Kranjska Gora, in an official leaflet, has trouble getting the colors of the national flag straight. See it here. Oh, the humanity.

(Thanks Mitja!) 

UPDATE: Roy Gilbert, the programming director of Eurosport, has issued an apology: "I sincerely apologise for the major error appearing in the map introducing the Kranjska Gora Alpine Skiing World Cup event on December 21st 2005. As a Pan-European channel we are very concerned with this kind of information and we treat each Eurosport country with the same consideration and respect. I have made clear to my team that I will not accept any other mistake of this kind in the future. I feel really sorry for the Slovenian people who have been offended by this mistake and I again offer my apologies."