Olympics: Russia begin countdown to Sochi Games

SOCHI: Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to oversee lavish ceremonies yesterday, marking the start of the one-year countdown to Russia’s first Winter Olympic Games in the palm tree-lined port city of Sochi.

With some $50 billion of funds set to be spent on the Games, that price tag would make them more expensive than the record-setting 2008 summer Games in Beijing.

Officials voiced confidence that all the facilities and the accompanying buildings and roads would be finished on schedule.

“We are currently continuing to finish off the surrounding infrastructure,” said Sochi 2014 organising committee president Dmitry Chernyshenko.

The Sochi extravaganza will mark the Games’ first return to Russia since the Soviet era.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2013.