Sochi 2014
The city of Sochi, Russian Federation was elected as the host city of the XXII Olympic Winter Games in 2014 at the 119th IOC Session in Guatemala City on 4 July 2007.
Three candidate cities were involved in the final bidding process with Sochi, Russia beating PyeongChang, Korea in the final round of voting by 51 votes to 47. Salzburg of Austria was the third candidate. Both PyeongChang and Salzburg also missed out four years ago in a bid to host the 2010 Games.
Sochi is a popular resort city located on the coast of the Black Sea in southern Russia with a population of 350,000. The Sochi Olympic Park includes all five ‘ice’ venues for curling, ice hockey and skating (figure, short track, speed). The Sochi Olympic Park also includes the Olympic Stadium, the Main Media Centre, Olympic Village, Medals Plaza, Olympic Family hotels and the IOC hotel.
This will be Russia's first time hosting the Winter Olympic Games and the second time hosting an Olympic Games (1980 in Moscow while as the Soviet Union).
New events
The new events are ski slopestyle, snowboard slopestyle, snowboard parallel special slalom, ski halfpipe, women’s ski jumping, biathlon mixed relay, figure skating team event and luge team relay.
Venues
All venues in the Sochi Olympic Park are within in 10 minutes walk of each other. The mountain venues are less than 50 minutes, 49 kilometres away from Sochi Olympic Park. The mountains are connected to the city by two high speed roads and rail. Athletes will be accommodated in a 1,600-room Olympic Village in Sochi and a 1,400-room Sub Village in Krasnaya Polyana both to be of 4-star standard.
In the Causcusus mountain venues of Krasnaya Polyana the biathlon, bobsleigh (bob, skeleton), luge and skiing (alpine, cross-country, freestyle, Nordic combined, ski jumping, snowboard) will be held.
Australian Team Set to be Biggest and Best Yet
It is projected that the Australian Team for Sochi 2014 will total 50 athletes which is 10 more than Vancouver 2010. In Vancouver Australian athletes achieved a record medal haul with two gold and a silver. The Team for 2014 looks destined to have at least two defending Olympic champions in Torah Bright and Lydia Lassila plus World Champions Alex 'Chumpy' Pullin, Anna Segal and a host of other athletes with continued World Cup success.
Segal and Russ Henshaw will lead the charge in one of the new events on the program in Ski Slopestyle. It promises to be an exciting build-up as athletes chase qualification and perfect their performances ahead of the Games.
