Between the developer and the deep Black Sea

FEATURE | OLYMPICS

Between the developer and the deep Black Sea At the start of November, with a little over 15 months to go until the Olympic opening ceremony, Sochi staged the first Peace and Sport International Forum to be held outside Monaco. For the Russian organisers it was a chance to show off the progress of the city’s hugely ambitious 2014 project. For many delegates, it was a first encounter with the host of what promises to be an unusual winter Games.

By Eoin Connolly

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t will be cool for athletes. I think when you think about a global perspective, no one has an idea,” says Steve Mesler, an Olympic gold medallist in the four-man bobsleigh at Vancouver 2010. “So they’re going to tune into the Olympic Games all over the world and they’re going to see palm trees and beaches, and skiing and ice hockey.

It’s going to be… people aren’t going to understand what they’re watching I think, really. It’ll be cool.”

Mesler is speaking in Sochi at the start of November, filling time before a gala dinner for the Peace and Sport International Forum at the Grand Hotel in Krasnaya Polyana. He is attending in his capacity as the founder of Classroom Champions, a project which introduces Olympians to schools as mentors. A veteran of US Olympic teams in Salt Lake City and Turin as well as Vancouver, Mesler admits that Sochi will have “a huge footprint to fill” in matching the Games in Canada in 2010. “Construction is… construction’s going to happen,” he chuckles, “especially as they’re building most of the venues.

“That being said, the Russians are going to get things done. They’re excited.

It’s their first hosting of an Olympics Games since we didn’t come. So it’s America’s first time in Russia for an Olympic Games.”

Sochi 2014 is keen to show the world a winter Games it did not expect. So far, the efforts of local organising committee president Dmitry Chernyshenko and his team have reaped notable successes – most telling of all a marketing programme that has raked in over US$1.2 billion

“They’re going to tune into the Olympic Games all over the world and they’re going to see palm trees and beaches, and skiing and ice hockey.” in sponsorship since 2009, an Olympic record that is three times the total promised by the bid team and one and a half times the haul of Vancouver 2010.

At no point has there been any doubt, either, that the considerable financial and political weight of the Russian government has fallen behind the operation.

Now, with London 2012 a cherished memory, the reality of what it will take to accomplish those Olympic ambitions is as plain here as it has ever been. The scope of the transformation in Sochi promises wonder but the scale of work required to make it happen is staggering, too.

In November, even with some test events just a few weeks away, it remains a feat of imagination to see Sochi as a winter Olympic host. For one thing there remains a distinctly autumnal feel to the place, even up in the western Caucasus Mountains where the trees are reddening in complexion but the thermometer stays poised some way above freezing. Closer to the sea, where the ‘Coastal Cluster’ will welcome indoor events in 2014, there is weather that could pass for a summer’s day in many parts of Europe.

The snowflakes which adorn the fences outside the Grand Hotel seem faintly ironic, as though the owners are playing up the disconnect between the expectation of a winter Olympic city and Sochi’s climactic peculiarities. There are

white traces on the peaks above Krasnaya Polyana but otherwise little sign that this will be the world’s highest-profile ski resort in a little under 500 days’ time.

Heavy snowfall is never expected until December in these parts – and in recent years it has held off into January – so the organisers have devised the selfexplanatory ‘Sochi 2014: Guaranteed Snow’ programme. Snow collected from reservoirs at the start of the year has been stored in frozen sheets in the mountains, ready for later deployment – the system got a first successful test for the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup in December, when 4,600 cubic metres of snow was laid on the runways at the RusSki Gorki Jumping Centre.

Back down on the coast, temperatures will be mild in February 2014, perhaps even rivalling those on drearier days at London’s Paralympics last September.

Such a spread in conditions is remarkable for what will be the most compact Games in modern winter Olympic history. It is clear why those behind the project have long held such high hopes for Sochi, a former haunt of holidaying Soviet apparatchiks, as a year-round resort.

Sochi itself is growing as a business centre and is a future Formula One host but much of the expected legacy of the Games will be evident here in Krasnaya Polyana. The village – an ‘urban-type

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Pictured here on 1st November 2012, the Fisht Stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies of Sochi 2014 before becoming a soccer venue

settlement’ in the Russian administrative nomenclature – is enjoying its second rise from obscurity. At the turn of the 20th century it was identified by Tsar Nicholas II as a new hunting ground, a purpose abandoned with the Russian monarchy. Its proximity to Sochi lent it some appeal as a ski resort during the Soviet era – though it remained relatively inaccessible – while the loss of resorts outside Russia after the break-up of the USSR brought interest from newly wealthy holidaymakers.

But the July 2007 decision of the IOC to award Sochi the Games looks like being a decisive moment in its history. The Grand Hotel is undergoing a major expansion in capacity while along the road, enormous commercial and residential developments are rising. Krasnaya Polyana is preparing for life after 2014 as a Val d’Isère of the east – an attractive ski resort with easy access to a milder afternoon’s shopping or socialising in Sochi, and an elite winter sports facility which will keep top Russian athletes from seeking training in western mountain ranges. Town and piste are closely bound: views of the Black Sea

from sections of the mountaintop will be a highlight of many visits, not to mention television coverage in 2014.

In the slopes around the Grand Hotel the venues in the ‘Mountain Cluster’ have been taking shape for some time. The Rosa Khutor Alpine Centre is an existing nine-kilometre chain of pistes whose conversion to Olympic standards has come in two phases – the first completed in 2011, the second in time for a series of test events this winter. The extreme park for freestyle competitions is also in place.

The routes of the Sanki sliding centre, which will host the luge, skeleton and bobsleigh, are visibly pronounced amidst the fading greenery, and were deemed competition-ready at the end of October.

Between the slopes and the sea, construction, as Steve Mesler might have it, is happening. There is a constant rumble down the mountain roads – every second vehicle appears to be carrying heavy goods along one of the largest, busiest construction sites anywhere in the world today. With a little over a year to go until the opening ceremony roughly

one third of the work proposed to prepare Sochi for the Games lies ahead.

80 per cent of spending on the Games has gone on permanent infrastructure and much of what is left to be finished concerns transport.

At the foot of the sliding venues is a structure that looks something like a tortoise shell, pared down for some unspecified aerodynamic advantage. For many visitors it will become a familiar sight in February 2014. It is the Krasnaya Polyana terminal of the vital new highspeed rail link that will put the two Olympic zones within 30 minutes of each other, comfortably the shortest journey between indoor and mountain venues at a modern winter Games. In December 2012, Vladimir Putin conducted a progress meeting on one of the early train voyages along the route, which is reported to have been 85 per cent complete by the end of the year.

Back in November the appeal of a rapid trip through the valley is readily apparent.

Accessibility is almost invariably an issue for the mountain events at any winter

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FEATURE | OLYMPICS

Workmen abseil down the surface of the Bolshoy Ice Dome, Sochi’s main Olympic ice hockey arena

The interior of the Bolshoy Ice Dome emerges

Olympics and although the distance between the coastal and mountain clusters here is just 48km, it is clear that Games traffic would throttle the single major passageway. There are a huge number of projects ongoing to improve the roads around Sochi, with over 367.3km of roads and bridges set to have been built by 2014, creating new links within and between the Games clusters, and expanding the M-27 federal highway out of the city.

Of course, such work has meant slicing the belly of the valley wide open, exposing great seams of earth and rock.

Small wonder environmentalists have their concerns – echoed in the whispers in the Grand Hotel of those seeing the area for the first time. The Sochi 2014 team, however, have countered such doubts by promoting a range of green initiatives. The Games, they insist, are to be carbon neutral and create zero waste, with construction work certified to the international BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) standard. The Olympics will be used as an opportunity to engage with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) campaigns, and local flora and fauna populations, such as that of the Persian mountain leopard, are being restored. Nevertheless, it would be little surprise were the issue to arise again as the world’s media descends on the region in the year to come.

The Olympic Park is being built in Adler, just outside Sochi. Just now, it is a teeming anthill; all earthy colours and streams of concerted activity in every

Across the other side of the park is the Adler Arena, which will host speed skating before becoming a trade and exhibition centre in 2013. As November begins, it is around 98 per cent complete.

The interiors gleam pleasingly and most of the fittings are in place – as are the decorative palm trees. Of the major features, only the ice is missing, which seems fitting enough with the temperatures still stubbornly high outside.

More substantial work remains for the athletes’ village and media centre but the other venues are preparing for a busy run of test events in the spring. The Iceberg Skating Palace successfully staged the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in December 2012 and will host the ISU World Cup Short Track in February 2013.

The smaller ice hockey arena, the Shayba, will share hosting duties for the IIHF Ice Hockey U18 World Championship in April before welcoming the 4 Nations Ice Sledge Hockey Tournament, its Paralympic test event, in August and September. There was a blow for the Ice Cube Curling Centre when its technical systems were not finished in time to host the Cup of Russia event in December, but it is said to be well on track to stage the World Wheelchair Curling Championship

With a little over a year to go until the opening ceremony roughly one third of the work proposed to prepare Sochi lies ahead. direction. The centrepiece Fisht Stadium, which will host the ceremonies before finding life as a soccer stadium and 2018 World Cup venue, is still stripped back to its skeleton but many of the competition venues are nearing completion. For now, though, they are scattered across the unfinished surface like gems spilled from an oligarch’s purse.

The Bolshoy Ice Dome stands on a concrete plinth at the far end of the park, a ‘frozen drop’ looking out wistfully across the shimmering Black Sea. Set to be perhaps the most technologically advanced of the Olympic venues it is already an impressive sight and an entire country will hope it can be a historical site.

This is the venue that will stage the gold medal match in the Olympic ice hockey, where Russia will be favourites to win a first title since the Soviet era. Today, an arena that will soon resound to the clatter and roar of world class ice hockey is quiet, save for the occasional bang of workmen’s tools and a waft of gentle musak as the PA system gets a run. Its key test event is still some way off – it will host the IIHF World U18 Championship in April – and when the Olympics end, it is expected to become the new home of a Kontinental Hockey League team.

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The Adler Arena (left) speed skating venue and Iceberg Skating Palace (right) figure skating arena

Just now, the Olympic Park is a teeming anthill; all earthy colours and streams of concerted activity in every direction. in February and the World Junior Curling Championship in March.

For Sochi, and for the organisations planning their Olympic experiences here, the tests present a further obstacle in that they will take place in a city still ramping up in terms of capacity. Sochi International Airport, set in tree-lined hills just outside the city, is midway through a major expansion which is expected to bring its capacity up from an initial 1,600 passengers an hour to a figure of 3,800 passengers an hour by the end of 2013.

The airport is described in Sochi 2014 literature as ‘essentially one of the key venues’ for the Games. Its proximity to the centre of town and, more importantly, the main competition areas is an enviable asset, but here as elsewhere its full potential has yet to be tangibly realised.

Hotel capacity has been climbing in Sochi for some time with 20,000 new rooms being added to the more than 21,000 already in place. The Radisson Blu Resort & Congress Centre will house IOC members during the Games while hundreds of rooms in more modest facilities are being updated. Mindful, perhaps, of the negativity that surrounded hoteliers’ profiteering in Ukraine around Uefa Euro 2012, and of the need to think

of a bigger future for Sochi after February 2014, the Russian government announced maximum nightly rates for Olympic accommodation in December: 2,936 roubles (US$95) for a single room and 4,600 roubles (US$150) for a double in one or two-star accommodation, and 13,896 roubles (US$450) for a luxury suite.

With the world arriving – or an anticipated 80 of its nations, anyway – the Games will mark an important step in the evolution of Russian culture. In a workshop ahead of the Peace and Sport opening ceremony, officials from local and national government outline a strategy to get sport right at the heart of youth culture in the country, a force to combat everything from health issues to juvenile crime. The mayor of Sochi, the robust figure of Anatoly Pakhomov, is talking up the significance of the Paralympics, saying it will showcase and encourage changing attitudes towards disability in the country.

The Games will come at what may be a critical time for Russia’s international reputation. The Peace and Sport International Forum is taking place as two female members of the punk group Pussy Riot begin two-year sentences in penal colonies following a conviction for ‘hooliganism motivated by religious

hatred’ after a protest in a cathedral. The affair has sparked firestorms of dissent around the world and again established clear distance on social issues between Russia and some of its newest allies.

Sochi 2014 itself has not entirely escaped negative headlines in recent years. Pakhomov’s own election in 2009 – his position as mayor is effectively a newly created one – was dogged by allegations from opponents of voting irregularities. In 2011 Taimuraz Bolloyev, the chief executive of state-backed Sochi 2014 construction partner Olympstroy, stepped down for health reasons amid suggestions that he was involved in an alleged 23 million rouble (US$7million) swindle involving a ghost building project. Six criminal cases were opened against Olympstroy employees implicated in the affair; Russian law now dictates that the books of state companies be open to the public.

It is telling to hear Joël Bouzou, the president of Peace and Sport, declare himself “very happy, because I see that there is really freedom – absolutely free expression – and I think it’s great that this space is provided to the global audience of Peace and Sport, the global actors of Peace and Sport.” By common consent, the conference is a big one for the organisation, which is making the first of what will become biennial sorties out of the principality of Monaco, where it is based.

But it seems to be an important moment for those associated with Sochi 2014 as well. There is a strong Russian turnout

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FEATURE | OLYMPICS

Left to right: Prince Albert II, Peace and Sport’s Joël Bouzou, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak and sports minister Vitaly Mutko, Yelena Isinbayeva and the UN’s Wilfried Lemke

American Sarah Hendrickson jumps in the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup in Sochi in December 2012

The organisers will hope that visitors to the Olympics see a new, more open Russia in the faces of the Sochi 2014 volunteers. among an audience that is typically international in composition. Deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak is here to speak at the opening ceremony. So too is the nation’s athletics darling, Yelena Isinbayeva, a Peace and Sport Champion for Peace who in December was named mayor of Sochi’s Olympic village. Prince Albert II of Monaco is in attendance, giving the Sochi 2014 team a test of royal protocol during a visit to the major venues. And somewhere amidst all of this is Chernyshenko, flitting between meetings like a US presidential candidate at a party convention.

Vincent Gaillard, the director general of Peace and Sport partner SportAccord, says the sport for development movement is in a moment where it needs to find the “right arguments” for its importance but in some quarters the same is true of Russia’s Olympics. Certainly, events like the International Forum provide an opportunity ahead of the Games for the Sochi 2014 team to address the suspicion – some of it residual, some very much current – that lingers worldwide around the country’s authorities.

The organisers will hope that visitors to the Olympics see a new, more open Russia in the faces of the Sochi 2014 volunteers. The concept of volunteerism is largely alien in the country; according to the organising committee’s own figures, between two and nine per cent of Russians take part in volunteer activities, compared with 33 per cent of people in the UK and 35 per cent in Canada.

In order to deliver on its promise of creating a 25,000-strong volunteer force, comprising 35 per cent of Sochi 2014 personnel, Sochi has reached out to those in its midst born in the post-Soviet era.

Applicants are being sourced and selected from 26 volunteer centres, sited in universities across the country. Those 26 have been chosen from an initial 150 and Sochi State University, unsurprisingly, is among them. Its volunteers fill out the Peace and Sport team as the momentum of the programme gathers.

Phil Sherwood was the head of Locog’s ecstatically received volunteer programme and led a workshop on volunteering at the International Forum. Speaking a few weeks after the

conference, he gives his enthusiastic approval to the Sochi 2014 effort.

Though he points out that “the challenges of a volunteer programme are very, very different” from one Games to the next, entwined as they are with national culture, Sherwood has been involved in the official knowledge transfer programme between London and Sochi. More generally, the project has been maturing on for some time: around 20 Russian volunteers were at Vancouver 2010 as part of the ‘Sochi-VancouverSochi’ initiative, and 104 volunteers, four from each of the 26 centres, took part in the ‘Sochi-London-Sochi’ follow-up in the summer of 2012.

All of those volunteers were fully subjected to the London 2012 selection process and treated as conventional members of the team, and for Sherwood, there was a familiar sight once he reached Russian shores. “When I got off the aeroplane in Sochi,” he recalls, “what I immediately saw when I was welcomed by the Peace and Sport volunteers was one of them wearing a pair of Games Maker trainers.

“And then two days later, one of the 104 volunteers, having come back to Russia from London so excited about she was doing, she was there volunteering for Peace and Sport but talked a couple of her friends into doing it as well, telling them, ‘Look, you’re going to have a great time.

It’s a really good thing to do and you’re going to have great fun doing it as well.’”

For all the local environmental advantages and the many billions of roubles invested in services and infrastructure, it may be that attitude that determines how the world sees Sochi’s Olympics.

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