Russian Buys 6.6-lb Sochi Olympics Gold Coin for $232,000
A gold coin weighing three kilograms and dedicated to the 2014 Sochi Olympics was purchased Friday by an unnamed buyer in Russia’s Far East for $232,200, according to a spokeswoman for a bank where the coin was sold.
The coin is the heaviest and most expensive in a series of collectable coins to commemorate the Olympic Games in Sochi, the spokeswoman for the Sberbank branch in the Amur region said.
It carries a nominal value far beneath its real worth of 25,000 rubles or $785, said the spokeswoman, who did not give her name.
In 2010, Sberbank and Central Bank of Russia signed an agreement with the 2014 Sochi Olympics organizing committee to issue a special series of collectable gold and silver coins.
The agreement stipulated the issue of a total of 21 types of commemorative coins made of silver, 13 of gold, and three of non-ferrous metal.
Later this month the Central Bank is expected to release a commemorative coin for the Sochi 2014 Olympic torch relay into general circulation.
The coin will be in a currently unused denomination of 25 rubles ($0.78) and enter circulation from October 30, with up to 20 million examples to be issued, the bank said.
The coins are part of a wider program of coinage to celebrate the Olympics, which run from February 7 to 23. The Central Bank plans to issue a total of 38 designs for collectors and nine for public use, amounting to 50 million coins in all.
Updated with more detail throughout
FIFA Eyes 12 Games in Russia for Match-Fixing – Sports Minister
Twelve football matches in Russia are among several hundred worldwide that have been identified by the sport's world governing body FIFA as possibly having been fixed, the country's sports minister said Thursday.
Match-fixing is thought to be common in Russian football – although nowhere near the scale of the 1990s – as the country readies to host the 2018 World Cup. The culprits are rarely held to account.
"Two years ago, FIFA implemented a match-fixing warning system," Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said. "Since then, around 400-500 games have been identified as suspicious, including about 12 of our football games," he added.
He didn't say which matches were under scrutiny, only that two games were "resonant," but insisted that the country has increased its efforts to combat the scourge in recent years.
"We see that illogical bets are made, and this immediately enters the monitoring system," he said. "Having received the signal, football authorities send commissars, replace the match officials, and so on," Mutko added.
In an attempt to clean up the domestic game, Russian President Vladimir Putin in July signed legislation that toughens the maximum punishment for match-fixing to seven years in prison.
The law, proposed by Putin himself in January, makes it an offense for athletes, coaches and sports officials to bet on their own sports and couples prison time with a maximum 1 million ruble ($30,000) fine for those convicted.
The FIFPro international players' association claimed last year that as many as one in 10 footballers in Russia has at some point received an offer to fix a game.
But in April, the Russian Premier League urged the media to refrain from jumping to conclusions on match-fixing whenever a shock result occurs.
Russia to Issue Commemorative Olympic Torch Relay Coin
Russia's Central Bank said Wednesday it is to issue a commemorative coin for the Sochi 2014 Olympic torch relay later this month.
The coin will be in a currently unused denomination of 25 rubles ($0.78) and will go into wide circulation from October 30, with up to 20 million examples to be issued.
The coins are part of a wider program of coinage to celebrate the Olympics, which run from February 7 to 23 in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
The Central Bank plans to issue a total of 38 designs for collectors and nine for public use, amounting to 50 million coins in all.
The Sochi 2014 torch relay is the longest in history, taking in nearly 3,000 towns and cities along its record 65,000-kilometer route.
The relay ends February 7 at the opening ceremony for Russia's first Winter Games.
Published by exclusive arrangement with Around the Rings’ Sochi 2014 media partner RIA-Novosti.
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