2014 Winter Olympics

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The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games, or the 22nd Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event being held in Sochi, Russia.

Scheduled for 7–23 February 2014, opening rounds in figure skating, skiing, and snowboard competitions were held on the eve of the Opening Ceremony, 6 February 2014. Both the Olympics and 2014 Winter Paralympics are being organized by the Sochi Organizing Committee (SOC). Sochi was selected as the host city in July 2007, during the 119th IOC Session held in Guatemala City. It is the first Olympics in Russia since the breakup of the USSR in 1991. The USSR was the host nation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

A total of 98 events in 15 winter sport disciplines are being held during the Games. A number of new competitions—a total of 12 accounting for gender—are being held during the Games, including biathlon mixed relay, women's ski jumping, mixed-team figure skating, mixed-team luge, half-pipe skiing, ski and snowboard slopestyle, and snowboard parallel slalom. The events are being held around two clusters of new venues; an Olympic Park constructed in Sochi's Imeretinsky Valley on the coast of the Black Sea, with Fisht Olympic Stadium and the Games' indoor venues located within walking distance, and snow events in the resort settlement of Krasnaya Polyana.

In preparation, organizers focused on modernizing the telecommunications, electric power, and transportation infrastructures of the region. While originally budgeted at US$12 billion, various factors caused the budget to expand to over US$51 billion, surpassing the estimated $44 billion cost of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as the most expensive Olympics in history.

The lead-up to the 2014 Games was marked by major controversies, including allegations of corruption leading to the aforementioned cost overruns, concerns for the safety and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) athletes and supporters during the Games due to the country's recent anti-LGBT legislation, which have led to ongoing Olympic-focussed protests of anti-gay laws, protests by ethnic Circassian activists over the site of Sochi (the site of what they consider to be a genocide) and various security concerns over threats by jihadist groups tied to the insurgency in the North Caucasus.

Venues

With an average February temperature of 8.3 °C (42.8 °F) and a humid subtropical climate, Sochi is the warmest city to host a Winter Olympic Games. Sochi 2014 is the 12th straight Olympics to outlaw smoking; all Sochi venues, Olympic Park bars and restaurants and public areas are smoke-free during the Games.

Sochi Olympic Park (Coastal Cluster)

The Sochi Olympic Park was built by the Black Sea coast in the Imeretin Valley, about 4 km (2.5 miles) from Russia's border with Georgia. The venues are clustered around a central water basin on which the Medals Plaza is built, allowing all indoor venues to be within walking distance. The new venues include:

Krasnaya Polyana (Mountain Cluster)

Sports

98 events over 15 disciplines in 7 sports were included in the 2014 Winter Olympics. The three skating sports disciplines are figure skating, speed skating, and short track speed skating. There are six skiing sport disciplines—alpine, cross-country skiing, freestyle, Nordic combined, ski jumping and snowboarding. The two bobsleigh sports disciplines are bobsleigh and skeleton. The other four sports are biathlon, curling, ice hockey, and luge. A total of twelve new events are contested to make it the largest Winter Olympics to date Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of medal events contested in each sports discipline.

On 6 April 2011, the IOC accepted a number of events that were submitted by their respective sports federations to be considered for inclusion into the official program of these Olympic Games. The events include:

On 4 July 2011 the IOC announced that three events would be added to the program. These events were officially declared by Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge on 5 July 2011.

Team alpine skiing was presented as a candidate for inclusion in the Olympic program but the Executive board of the IOC rejected this proposal. The International Ski Federation persisted with the nomination and this was considered. There were reports of Bandy possibly being added to the sports program, but the IOC rejected this request. Subsequently, the international governing body, Federation of International Bandy, decided to that Irkutsk and Shelekhov in Russia, would host the 2014 Bandy World Championships just before the Olympics.

On 28 November 2006, the Executive Board of the IOC decided not to include the following sports in the review process of the program.

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