Start for the Winter Olympics
As of Friday, February 7th, until February 23rd the Russian resort of Sochi will be hosting the Winter Olympic Games.
Roxana Vasile, 07.02.2014, 12:20
Located between the Black Sea Coast and the Caucasus Mountains, the city of Sochi has been for quite a long time the favourite destination of the political elite in Moscow. To become a genuine Olympic city, Sochi has seen many construction works over the past 6 years. Hotels and blocks of flats have been erected, the infrastructure has been modernized and ski slopes have been equipped with modern installations, everything at a huge cost, around 37 billion euros, which makes the 22nd edition of the Winter Olympics in Sochi the most expensive in the history of the Olympic Games.
The Winter Olympics is an occasion for Russian President Vladimir Putin to show the whole world a modern Russia. Moscow’s repressive attitude towards the gay community, the persecution of those who oppose the power, corruption, the violation of the freedom of the press and of human rights made some world leaders such as the US President Barack Obama, the French President Francois Hollande and the British PM David Cameron not to participate in the opening ceremony.
The Kremlin leader hopes that the spirit of the sports competition will prevail over tensions during the Olympic Games. Against the backdrop of strict security measures, imposed by the fear of possible terrorist attacks by the Islamists in the Caucasus, the competitions started one day before the inaugural ceremony.
Until February 23rd the best world athletes will try to win one of the 294 medals up for grabs in the Olympics. Encouraged by many people who travelled to Russia for the Games, watched on TV by 3 billion people and reviewed by 13 thousand accredited journalists, as many as 3 thousand athletes, making up 90 delegations from different foreign countries, all over the world, will do their best to win a medal.
Romania will be represented by 24 athletes that will participate in 8 events: alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, ski jumping, figure skating, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton. According to the Secretary General of the Romanian Sports and Olympic Committee, Ioan Dobrescu, a place in the first 10 would be the equivalent of a medal, and a place in the first 20 would be considered a special result, given that at the 1968 competition in the French resort of Grenoble, Romania won the only medal in the history of its participation in the Winter Olympic Games, namely the bronze medal, won by two-man bobsleigh team, made up of Ion Panturu and Nicolae Neagoe.
