Konstantin Ernst, who heads Russia's Channel One television station and directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the Sochi Olympic Games, has been named "Person of the Year" by the county's GQ magazine.
Ernst, who also picked up a gong in GQ's "Producer of the Year" category, was awarded the title for directing February's Olympic without any major glitches, save a snowflake in the opening ceremony that failed to open — leaving the iconic Olympic rings with one ring down.
Photographs of the malfunction quickly went viral on the Internet, prompting producer Ernst to poke fun at the incident by re-enacting it in the closing ceremony.
"[I give] thanks to the Olympics. It was one of the happiest and most terrible experiences of my life. I was only thinking about how to make a joke of the unopened ring in the closing ceremony," Ernst reportedly told the audience while accepting his gong at Tuesday's award ceremony in Moscow.
In addition to Ernst, other notable winners on Tuesday were speed-skater Viktor Ahn, who won three gold medals at the Sochi Games and was named "Sportsman of the Year" by GQ, and "Director of the Year" Andrei Zvyagintsev, whose film "Leviathan" was nominated for this year's Palme d'Or award in Cannes.
