First Look at Sochi
It's mid- February and your flight just landed at Sochi
International Airport. You grab your bags and hop on a high speed
train for a 25 minute ride into the Krasnaya Polyana station,
walking distance from the hotel. You check-in, leave the bags and
jump onto an eight minute gondola ride. The doors open and you made
it to the ski and snowboarding venue at the 2014 Olympic Winter
Games in Sochi. That was a preview from Vice President, Athletics
Luke Bodensteiner recent site visit to Sochi, host of the 2014
Olympic Winter Games.
Bodensteiner recently joined an initial U.S. Olympic Committee visit
to the 2014 venues. It was an impressive site! The Games will
feature two venue centers. The Coastal Venue in the city will host
the skating events and ceremonies, just minutes from Sochi
International Airport. Only a short distance away in the mountains,
all of the ski and snowboarding venues are in close proximity in the
Mountain Cluster – the closest concentration of outdoor venues in
recent Olympic history.
Back home at the USSA's Center of Excellence, Bodensteiner took a
few minutes to talk about the trip to Sochi.
What's your first impression of Sochi?
What a great place for our athletes to come and have the time of
their lives, It's like nothing I've seen for a Winter Olympics.
Excellent food, relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and still an
intriguing hint of the old Russian style reminds you that you are in
a very different place. It's the biggest construction project I've
ever seen – think Rome in a day!
What's new in Sochi?
When I went there two years ago, it was a really small little
mountain town up a pretty narrow mountain valley. I swear there must
have been about 800 people living there with old houses and without
any kind of resort at all up there. Now, going back, you can see
it's going to be a huge transformation. There's tons of construction
going on right now everywhere you go with thousands of workers and
trucks. They're building a world class ski resort which is going to
have great skiing. The mountains are all being connected by peak to
peak gondolas on two sides of the valley. Down along the river
they're doing great development of about two dozen high-end hotels.
That's going to basically be the heartbeat of the Olympics because
along the river corridor are the mountain venues up at the top of
the ski area, then the resort village and down at the bottom of the
river valley in Sochi are the ice arenas. They're actually at the
end of Sochi, about an hour from downtown in normal traffic. So
really I think the action is going to be up in skiing and
snowboarding venue at Rosa Khutor.
They built an entire ski and snowboard area from scratch?
There was a beginning of a ski area up there, but I don’t know how
long it's been around. It was pretty minor, so they're really
jamming away.
Never heard of Sochi before the bid, what was it before this?
Basically Sochi has been a summer getaway for probably 50-60 years
for the Russian or Soviet elite government officials. It's still a
pretty nice summer resort, although when I was there in the town a
couple years ago it was feeling old and needed a facelift. Now you
go around and can definitely see that redevelopment is happening.
This is going to be an incredible summer and winter resort. They're
building the winter compliment of the beach resort and it's a full
on beach resort. In fact, when you're at the skating venues or ice
arenas you're about 100 yards from the sea. They're building all the
Olympic villages inside the venues, which will be super convenient
for the athletes because once your in the village you really don’t
have to go through security anymore. But from the Olympic village in
Sochi there's an access way by sea, so you can ship your equipment
in and it will land on a dock at the village."
What weather can people expect?
It's going to be interesting. I haven't been there in the winter so
I don't really know what to expect in terms of climate. When I was
in Sochi two years ago in November, it was basically summer weather
in the city. It's going to be temperate down in the city and you
don’t climb that much elevation to get to the village up in the
mountain but there's snow that comes down to the town. I hear they
get a lot of snow and there was still snow on the peaks when we were
there. It snows pretty frequently, but they get a lot of moisture
from the sea, so I don’t know if it will be dry, powdery snow or
something a little wetter. It will for sure be great skiing.
What's the feel or vibe going to be like?
I think the Olympics are going to provide a really light and fun
atmosphere there. It's going to be great for the athletes and I
think they're really going to like it.
Author of Story: Elizabeth Karam, USSA
