RUSSIA: WINTER OLYMPICS - A year to date before the Sochi 2014 Winter Games Russian President Vladimir Putin tours finished and unfinished venues.

Record ID: 862521

  • Title: RUSSIA: WINTER OLYMPICS - A year to date before the Sochi 2014 Winter Games Russian President Vladimir Putin tours finished and unfinished venues.
  • Date: 7th February 2013
  • Summary: SOCHI, RUSSIA (FEBRUARY 7, 2013) (AGENCY POOL) SPEED SKATING RINK PUTIN AND OFFICIALS WALKING TOWARDS REPORTERS
  • Embargoed: 22nd February 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Russian Federation
  • City:
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Politics,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVAA7XNKNWPTPYB2307G9LKA211B
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  • Story Text: Russian President Vladimir Putin toured venues at the future site of the 2014 Winter Olympics on Thursday (February 7), surveying models in the unfinished media centre, and inspecting the finished speed skating rink, a year to the day ahead of the Games.
    In Sochi, the din of the heavy trucks and diggers is ever-present, and cranes litter the sky around sports venues. Large areas are fenced off in the city centre and many of the roads are closed.
    Putin had warned officials on Wednesday (February 6) not to let corruption push up the costs of the Games, already expected to reach $50 billion, or five times more than the initial price tag. This would make them the costliest Games so far.
    Putin fired a top Russian Olympic official on Thursday after publicly ridiculing him on a visit to half-finished sports complexes planned for a winter Olympics dogged by reports of corruption and construction delays.
    The humiliation of Akhmed Bilalov, 42, stamped President Putin's authority over the 2014 Sochi Games and underlined the importance he attaches to a global event he hopes will show how far Russia has come since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
    The Olympics are a priority for Putin in his third term as president, a chance to show Russia is a modern democracy capable of organising global events, 13 years after he rose to power.
    Russia has been trying to shed its reputation for corruption, which has long put off foreign investors. But fears of foul play prompted then-President Dmitry Medvedev to order an investigation in 2010 into a senior Kremlin official accused of extorting bribes over Games construction work.
    The price of building one less than 50-km (31-mile) stretch of road for the Games has been estimated at $7.5 billion, a figure so high that it fuelled more corruption allegations.
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