In Sochi , workers were still hammering away in the media village and shower water ran yellow when journalists from around the world arrived for the Winter Games.
Thursday marks exactly one year to go before the Feb. The IOC has set a deadline for the end of next month for pre-certification of the Cortina track and nobody is saying for sure if it will pass the test. With people working from 6 a. Construction began less than a year ago and no sliding track has been built in such a short timeframe. An official test event is slated for October, a step that has taken on more importance since the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in a training crash hours before the start of the opening ceremony for the Vancouver Games.
The IOC would have preferred to use an active track in nearby Austria or Switzerland instead of rebuilding the Cortina venue, which had been closed since But it let the local organizing committee select the Plan B option. There's no substance to it. Environmental groups have protested over climate damage due to the Cortina track's reconstruction.
On Location has received requests for hospitality packages from 62 countries so far, with ice hockey, biathlon and figure skating the most popular sports. Private boxes for the opening ceremony at the iconic San Siro soccer stadium have already sold out. These are the first Games to fully embrace cost-cutting reforms installed by IOC President Thomas Bach and use mostly existing venues β which has meant scattering the Games all over northern Italy.
Livigno will host freestyle skiing and snowboarding, biathlon will be in Anterselva, Nordic events will be in Val di Fiemme and ice sports in Milan. One reason that the organizing committee is adapting to each and every venue is that most of these places have a long history of hosting World Cup races and world championships. For example, Bormio hosted the Alpine skiing worlds in and ; Cortina hosted the skiing worlds in and has been the site of more than World Cup ski races; Anterselva has hosted six biathlon worlds dating back to ; Val di Fiemme has hosted three Nordic worlds.
