Sochi Olympic Bid; Snow Guaranteed at No Extra Charge

Piggybacking off yesterday's post, here is then-President Putin's opening pitch in Guatemala City for Sochi 2014, just in case you've never seen it.  Along with guaranteed snow, you, the Olympic attendee, will be traffic-free for the duration of the Games.  And you definitely won't be used as a human roadblock.

Sochi Less than Two Months from Europa Cup

In case you missed it, I thought I would hit on what the (internet and/or skiing) world considers to be the first major test for Sochi Olympic organizers: staging the Alpine Europa Cup.  As you undoubtedly already know, the Alpine Europa Cup is one step below the World Cup in the ski world, though organizer Sarah Lewis, secretary general of the International Ski Federation (FIS), still expects many of the world's top skiers to attend. 

As for the lack of snow in mid-December and temperatures pushing 70, well, that's nothing to worry about:

"In December we don't have much snow here but I can promise you that in three or four weeks we'll have lots of it," the area's managing director Alexander Belokobylsky told Reuters.
"Nevertheless, we have 150 snow-making machines ready, just in case, and the piste is nearly ready," he said, referring to the Olympic downhill course, which starts at 2,045 metres for men and at 1,745m for women and finishes at 960m.

 Belokobylsky goes to assure us that the concerns from environmental groups over the 100 hectares that had to be cleared for the downhill course "have been solved."  The article also mentions that "the organisers also had to convince local residents that staging the Games would bring huge benefits to the area" and offers that the locals were, by and large, convinced.  As to what those "huge benefits" might be, well, that is left up to the imagination.

Looking Back...

Unsurprisingly, the 2010 Winter Olympics that were held in Vancouver, British Columbia were voted top Canadian news story of the year in the annual survey of newsrooms across the country by The Canadian Press:

Forty-three years after the Centennial flame flickered to life on Parliament Hill, Canadians came together for 17 glorious days in February beneath the glow of another fiery symbol of peace and goodwill: the Olympic torch. 

In fact, according to surveys, 8 in 10 Canadians "still feel a sense of pride from the Games" and, anyway, could 3.6 million pairs of mittens be wrong?

And to top it off, in a report that was released with Canadian parliamentarians on Winter break and only a week before Christmas, VANOC reported that the $1.884 billion dollar operations budget resulted in neither surplus nor deficit.  This was generally reported without inquiry across Canada, though a few, like Bob Mackin, asked the obvious question about whether a budget can be 'balanced' when it required $187 million from Canadian taxpayers to balance it?  And should Canadian citizens be concerned that VANOC released no quarterly reports, why the names of senior managers and directors are nowhere to be found on the report and why there is footage of a Shred-it paper shredding truck in the VANOC parking lot recently.  Aw, hell, I'll let him ask the tough questions.

The Canadians should be careful; pretty soon they'll be making Salt Lake 2002 look transparent.

A Bear by any Other Name...

Breaking news on the Olympic mascot front.  The official website of the 2014 Winter Games (English link here) has announced a short list of mascot candidates!  Straight from the bear's mouth:

The expert jury, consisting of prominent cultural, educational, sports, business and political figures, is chaired by Konstantin Ernst, CEO of Channel One Russia. After a review the 24,000 designs submitted during the contest, the jury shortlisted the top 10 Olympic and top 3 Paralympic mascot ideas from which the winners will be chosen in February 2011. The jury has decided that both animals - such as bears, leopards, dolphins, bullfinches, rabbits, and abstract characters - such as snowballs, snowflakes, traditional Russian nested dolls (Matreshkas) - can continue the race

Finding pictures of the images is relatively difficult in English but I was able to track down a collage of potential mascots created by the Voice of Russia.  Sochi residents had first crack at unofficially choosing the Olympic mascot because it was included on the March, 2008 presidential ballot. At that time, the dolphin won.  While it is unclear which character is the front-runner, it is clear that Russians have little tolerance for 'Zoich,' a frog with spinning Olympic rings for eyeballs. ('Zoich' comes from a relatively clever reading of the '2014' in the official Sochi Olympic logo.)

Olympic mascots have been around since the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble, France and, by and large, have a history of being either terrifying or confusing (Izzy, anyone?).  Luckily, you can take a tour of all the Olympic mascots since the 1968 Games and see for yourself (link is in Russian, but is mostly just photos). 

Of course, the above mascot, 'Misha,' was the official mascot of the U.S.-boycotted 1980 Summer Games held in Moscow. 

It was interesting to hear that the Russians had appointed an 'expert jury' to sift through submissions; whether or not that's a good thing depends on your point of view.

A Look Back

I figured that a good place to begin the discussion would be with a brief look at how any city wins the opportunity to host an Olympic Games.  From here on out, this space will be more of a continuously updated blog focusing primarily on the day's Olympic news.  Of course, I reserve the right to intersperse Sochi Watch with history lessons when the mood strikes.

  Here is a nifty little synopsis of the timeline with regard to Sochi,  provided by the invaluable Gamesbids.com.  Essentially, what happens is this:

A country's National Olympic Committee' (NOC) nominates a city to host a particular Olympic Games by a deadline.  To move forward in the process, the NOC must then submit a signed Candidature Acceptance Procedure, pay the application fee (for the 2014 Games, the fee was $150,000) and submit a questionairre.   The IOC Working Group then reviews the applications to help the Executive Board select a short list of Candidate Cities (for 2014, the short list was PyeongChang, South Korea, Salzburg, Austria and Sochi).  These cities then move on to the second phase of the process.

The Candidate Cities must then submit their 'candidature file' (also known as a bid book),which is essentially a detailed description of each host city's Olympic plans.  The IOC Evaluation Commission then reviews each candidature and produces a report  which is distributed to the members of the IOC about a month before the vote.  In this report, the IOC also takes into consideration the official visits made to the Candidate Cities a few months before the final vote by all IOC members.  Finally, at an IOC Session, a vote is taken.  The entire process takes roughly 2 years and begins about 9 years before the Games (Sochi was announced as host of the 2014 Games in July of 2007).

Thus concludes today's history lesson.  All of this sounds neat and tidy but, every so often, the ugly underside of the process is revealed to the general public (Salt Lake City, anyone?). 

And So it Begins...

In the summer of 2007, the Russian Federation was awarded the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics (officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games) which are to be held in the (formerly) sleepy Black Sea resort of Sochi.  At the time and depending on your source, Russia pledged around $12 billion dollars to the project.  And by Russia I mean the government and government-run monopolies like Gazprom and the usual collection of oligarchs.  All this to turn a place that in 2007 had one road leading to the mountains to access the one dated ski resort into the premier winter sports venue in Europe. Oh, and don't forget about the pesky folks at the UN complaining endlessly about irreparable environmental harm.  Reports of fraud, waste, abuse and excess (the standard roll call of issues with nearly any government-funded project) came out almost immediately.In a sense, the country that gave us the Potemkin village is attempting to construct the ultimate.

Over the last week, the cost of the real thing was reported by more than one news agency as having trebled to north of 950 billion rubles - somewhere around $30 billion US.    On top of that, Russia was recently awarded the 2018 World Cup, despite similar concerns about a total lack of infrastructure necessary to host such a mega-event.

All of this is a roundabout way to get to who I am, what Sochi Watch is and what you're doing here.  As for me: I'm just a guy who wrote a thesis that touched on how Moscow was awarded the 1980 Summer Olympics and is a general fan of both the Winter and Summer versions of the Games.  I also speak a little bit of Russian, studied the language and culture in both undergrad and grad school and have more than a passing interest in the relationship between public funding and sports.

What is Sochi Watch?

Just as the pithy line at the top of this page says, I just want to take an honest look at all things Russia and the Olympics as the 2014 Winter Games approach.  The amount of information that touches on some aspect of the buildup is overwhelming and I'll be trying to cherry pick the news that is most relevant and comment on that.  And I'll do my best to be fair, while also recognizing that, for nearly any government, outlaying outrageous amounts of public cash to stage a sporting event, even one as important as the Olympics, is usually not a great idea.

As for you...

Well, I hope you learn a little bit and I know I'll learn an awful lot.  If you're just curious about Russia, the Olympics, sports, international politics or you randomly visit blogger.com blogs, I appreciate you stopping by and please, spread the word!