Olympic Volunteers Prepare to Put the Smile into Sochi
Some of the most fondly remembered stars at the London 2012 Olympics were the many thousands of volunteers assisting at sports stadiums and venues.
A typical British newspaper headline after the Games read: "Olympic success down to 70,000 volunteers."
Russia hopes a similar movement will have the same impact on the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February, preparations for which have been plagued by accusations of overspending, threats of boycotts and criticisms of the mass construction in the area.
Read more at RIA Novosti.
Putin Signals Volunteers Could Fill Empty Seats at Sochi Olympics
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signaled that volunteers may be allowed to fill up empty seats at the Sochi Olympics next month.
In a worrying development for organizers, it was announced Thursday that around 30 percent of Olympic tickets remain unsold three weeks before the February 7 opening ceremony.
"Why should places go empty? It's better that they're filled, and occupied by people who love sport," Putin said on a trip to the mountain facilities at Krasnaya Polyana, where he met some of the 25,000 volunteers who are to staff Russia's first Winter Olympics.
Russian officials are eager to avoid the embarrassment of large swathes of unfilled seats being the backdrop to a project designed to boost the country's international prestige.
But tickets for 73 medal events, generally in the higher price bands, remained available via the online booking system as of Thursday, including for all Alpine skiing events and the men’s hockey bronze medal game.
Luxury tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies were also listed as available.
The London 2012 Olympics sold out tickets for every event apart from football, while the last Winter Olympics in Vancouver saw all but 110,000 of 1.5 million tickets snapped up. Some events in London suffered from empty seats, though that was put down to no-shows from corporate guests in areas reserved for sponsors.
Volunteerswere used to fill empty seats to augment disappointing attendances for August's world athletics championships in Moscow and the world university games in Kazan in July.
Artificial Snow on the Slopes for the 2014 Winter Olympics
A special Guaranteed Snow Program has been drafted to produce the required amount of snow for the 2014 Olympics.
Natural and artificial snow has been stockpiled during pre-Olympic winter seasons and stored in summer using special technology and modern insulation materials. Production of the required amount of snow at sub-zero and positive temperatures was accomplished using snow-generating equipment. Each facility and mountain cluster received it's own optimal snow transportation system.
A layer of artificially produced snow will be fired onto the slopes of the mountains around the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
All in all, 150,000 cubic meters of artificial snow is scheduled for production in Sochi prior to the start of the Olympics on February 7th, 2014.
For more details on the artificial snow system, visit RIA Novosti.
Published by exclusive arrangement with Around the Rings’ Sochi 2014 media partner RIA-Novosti.
For general comments or questions,click here.
20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics isAroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
