Sochi Winter Olympics organizers promise to store snow in advance
Xinhua
MOSCOW– Snow for the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi will be collected and stored in advance, head of the Coordination Commission of the International Olympic Committee said on Monday. “Snow will be prepared and stored in advance wherever possible. We should learn from Vancouver Olympics,” Jean-Claude Killy told the Russia Today TV channel.
Unseasonably balmy weather during the Vancouver Winter Olympics in February 2010 pulled the organizers a boner, so they had to urgently transport tons of snow from the mountains and even cancelled some competitions.
Killy stressed that technology allowed snow to be stored indefinitely long even in summer for use in case there will be shortage of the natural white stuff. Sochi, where the sporting venues are being built, is the warmest city in Russia located in the Black Sea subtropical zone.
“This is a unique place. You may ski in the morning and bathe in the sea an hour later,” Killy said. The official added that opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics would be on broadcast for two billion people worldwide.
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The 2014 Olympic Winter Games will be the first time that the Russian Federation will have hosted the Winter Games; the Soviet Union (USSR) hosted the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow.
The Games will be organised in two clusters: a coastal cluster for ice events in Sochi, and a mountain cluster located in the Krasnaya Polyana Mountains. This will make it one of the most compact Games ever, with around 30 minutes travel time from the coastal to mountain cluster.
The Sochi Olympic Park will be built along the Black Sea coast in the Imeretinskaya Valley, where all the ice venues such as the Bolshoi Ice Palace, the Maly Ice Palace, the Olympic Oval, the Sochi Olympic Skating Centre, the Olympic Curling Centre, the Central Stadium, the Main Olympic Village and the International Broadcast Centre and Main Press Centre, will be built anew for the 2014 Games. The Park will ensure a very compact concept with an average distance of 6km between the Olympic Village and the other coastal venues.
Source: IOC Olympic.org
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Video: RT-Sochi Olympics will be unique
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Video: 31 mile (50km) railway and road project connecting subtropics to snow mountains
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Sochi unveils record torch relay for 2014 Games
Reuters
The route of the torch relay for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi was unveiled on Sunday, exactly a year before the Olympic flame will be lit in the ancient Greek town of Olympia. The Sochi organizers said it would be the longest torch relay in Winter Olympic history, measuring 65,000 kilometres (40,389 miles) – more than one-and-a-half times the circumference of the Earth.
The torch will travel from the western exclave of Kaliningrad to the frozen wastes of Chukotka in Russia’s Far East, visiting more than 2,900 towns and settlements along the way across all 83 regions of the world’s largest country.
“The relay will bring the entire country together, highlighting the diversity and beauty of Russia,” Sochi 2014 chief Dmitry Chernyshenko said during the official presentation in Moscow. “The torch relay is one of the most important and magical events associated with the Olympic Games.”
After arriving from Greece, the flame will begin a 123-day journey, starting in Moscow before heading east, looping around the Kamchatka Peninsula, down to Vladivostok – the port city on the Pacific Ocean – and back across southern Siberia via Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater reservoir. The organizers said the flame would travel by plane, train and car, on foot, and even on a “troika” – a traditional Russian sleigh pulled by horses or reindeer.
The flame should arrive in the Black Sea resort in time for the Olympic Opening Ceremony on February 7, 2014. More than 14,000 torchbearers and 30,000 volunteers will accompany the relay. The previous record, with 12,000 torchbearers covering some 45,000 kilometers, was set ahead of the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010.
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Video: Russia reveals route of Olympic torch for 2014 Games
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Official website
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Sochi, Russia
Population (2010 Census): 343,334
Sochi is located in Krasnodar Krai, which is a federal subject located in the Southern Federal District. The Southern Federal District is one of the eight federal districts of Russia.
Krasnodar Krai has a population of 5,226,647
Southern Federal District has a population of 13,854,334
Sochi, the summer capital of Russia, is the first subtropical city to host Winter Olympic Games
Sochi, Russia is located near the Caucasus Mountains along the shores of the Black Sea. The city is located in what is called the Russian Riviera and has palm trees and beaches.
Sochi is located close to Mount Elbrus, the tallest mountian in Europe, with its west summit at 5,642 metres (18,510 ft).
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Olympic Park design
480 days to go from October 16, 2012
Opening date: February 07, 2014
Click image to enlarge:
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Video: Olympic venues Sochi 2014 – presentation
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Update January 20, 2014:
40,000 to guard Sochi 2014 Olympic games
https://dilemma-x.net/2014/01/20/40000-to-guard-sochi-2014-olympic-games/
Update January 16, 2013:
Russia: Olympic complex nears completion in Sochi
See link:
https://dilemma-x.net/2013/01/16/russia-olympic-complex-nears-completion-in-sochi/
Dilemma X 
October 16, 2012
Athletics, International