Get ready to watch Team USA skate, ski, and sled for the gold at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia!
In just a few weeks, the Opening Ceremony for the Games will be held on February 7th in the Fisht Olympic Stadium, which is named for Mount Fisht, a famous mountain in Russia that is closely located to the Olympic Park. Interestingly, the snow-capped peak of Mount Fisht was a source of inspiration for the architects of Sochi’s Olympic Stadium: “The shining snow cap also serve[d] as the prototype for the original architectural concept for the “Fisht” Olympic Stadium” (“First Olympic Stadium – Opening Ceremonies”). The stadium’s translucent polycarbonate roof will allow spectators to view the mountain’s snowy landscape.
This will be Russia’s first time hosting the Winter Olympic Games. (In 1980, the Soviet Union hosted the Summer Olympic Games in Moscow.) The privilege of being chosen to host the Games certainly comes with a price tag. In fact, according to an online article in Bloomberg Businessweek, the 2014 Winter Olympics is the most expensive Games in the history of the Olympics: “At $51 billion, the Sochi Games are the costliest ever, surpassing $40 billion spent by China on the 2008 Summer Olympics” (Yaffa 6).
For sixteen days, athletes will be competing for medals in 98 events. The fifteen different sports included in the Games will be divided into two clusters. The coastal cluster consists of the ice-related sports: speed skating, curling, ice hockey, figure skating, and short track speed skating. As for the other division, the mountain cluster will include alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, bobsleigh, luge, skeleton, ski jumping, and Nordic combined.
After the competition, the Games will conclude with Closing Ceremony on February 23rd.
Stay tuned for more articles about the 2014 Winter Olympics!
What is your favorite sport to watch in the Winter Olympics? Please post your answer in the comments section below.
Works Cited:
“Fisht Olympic Stadium – Opening Ceremonies.” Sochi 2014. N.p., 2014. Web. 4 Jan. 2014. <http://www.sochi2014.com/en/spectators-place-fisht-olympic-stadium/>.
“Sochi 2014 Olympics.” Olympic.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Jan. 2014. <http://www.olympic.org/sochi-2014-winter-olympics>.
Torre, Inez. “Sochi 2014: Winter Olympic Venues.” CNN. Turner Broadcasting System, 31 Oct. 2013. Web. 4 Jan. 2014. <http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/sport/sochi-2014-venues-winter-olympics/>.
Yaffa, Joshua. “The Waste and Corruption of Vladimir Putin’s 2014 Winter Olympics.” Bloomberg Buisnessweek. N.p., 2 Jan. 2014. Web. 4 Jan. 2014. <http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-02/the-2014-winter-olympics-in-sochi-cost-51-billion>.