Top News

IOC to check out Russia's winter bid

(AP)
Updated: 2007-02-19 21:14

SOCHI, Russia - With its palm trees and Black Sea beaches, Sochi seems like a good spot to hold the Summer Olympics. Turn your back on the seaside sights, though, and it's clear why the city is bidding for the 2014 Winter Games.

Soaring snowcapped peaks rise at the city's outskirts, some topping 3,200 meters (10,000 feet). The dramatic setting combining subtropical vegetation and alpine chill in a comparatively compact area is a key element in Sochi's campaign to bring the Winter Olympics to Russia for the first time.

An International Olympic Committee evaluation commission begins its tour of Sochi on Tuesday, compiling information and impressions ahead of the July 4 vote pitting the Russian city against Salzburg, Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea.

On Monday, the IOC inspectors were studying documents from the bid committee.

The Olympic panel completed its tour of Pyeongchang on Saturday. The group will inspect Salzburg next month.

Although Sochi has long been a popular vacation destination for Russians, it's relatively unknown to international travelers. The corresponding low level of development is one of the biggest hurdles the bid aims to overcome.

A national government plan foresees spending nearly US$12 billion (euro9 billion) to upgrade the area's infrastructure, transport and accommodations for winter tourists. Some of the money has already been spent on the first stage of expanding the terminal of the small Adler airport that serves the region; the second stage is to include lengthening runways to handle larger aircraft.

The airport is likely to be of key interest to the IOC assessors. The May 2006 crash of an airliner approaching Adler killed 113 people and drew wide attention to concerns that landing at the airport is difficult, requiring an approach over the sea to a narrow strip between the mountains and the water.

Transport on the ground also is in need of major work. The bid plan calls for extensive rail systems to be built connecting the airport with Sochi city, where most of the Olympic hotel rooms would be, and with the ice sports venues that would be built in an area near the coast. A light-rail system is planned to take spectators into the Krasnaya Polana snow sports area some 50 kilometers (30 miles) away in the high mountains.

The main media center and athletes' village would be in the complex including the ice sports venues _ and the bid committee touts the layout as a strong suit, saying athletes based there would be no more than 10 minutes by foot from their competition areas.

The low level of development in the mountains makes the region especially appealing to nature buffs. It's also made the bid controversial for local ecological groups, which warn that massive development would irreparably harm a region whose complex and pristine environment has earned designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The government and environmental groups, including the Russian office of the World Wildlife Fund, last week agreed on forming a board of ecology experts to oversee the development plans.

The agreement "confirms that that the Sochi 2014 Winter Games will leave a long-lasting legacy for environmental policy in our country," said bid committee chairman Dmitry Chernyshenko.

Some other shadows also have fallen on the Sochi bid in recent weeks. In January, the private company that operates the ski lifts at Krasnaya Polana shut down for 48 hours after safety and sanitary inspections that it contended were mounted by regional authorities aiming to seize control of the resort.

A week later, heavy snow and high winds pulled down power lines in the region, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity for days. The outage was severe enough that President Vladimir Putin was asked about it at his annual news conference.

"I have no doubt that if the International Olympic Committee favors Sochi, we will build all necessary facilities on schedule," he said.

Late last week, the head of the national electricity grid asked the national government to set aside some 14 billion rubles (US$560 million) to improve electricity supplies in the region.