Sochi Organizers Reflect On Busy Year
Sochi 2014 is reaping praise for its performance in 2010.
Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Zhukov lauded the organizing committee Monday during the final meeting of the year for its supervisory board.
"This year, the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee has demonstrated progress in all of the 46 functional areas of activity," said Zhukov, also president of the Russian Olympic Committee.
"Innovative, technological and management solutions which have been implemented during the preparations for the Games are recognized as the new international standard by the IOC. Due to work being carried out in areas such as the developing the volunteer movement, creating a barrier-free environment and introducing ‘Green’ standards, we can already see the significant and lasting positive legacy the Games will provide our country."
Zhukov also commended Sochi 2014 for securing more Games funding, coordinating test event preparations and introducing a slew of social projects, including a Paralympic awareness campaign and the ongoing mascot competition.
"Three years ago in Guatemala, we won the right to host the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and we now we have exactly the same period - three years - before our magnificent event in 2014," said organizing committee CEO Dmitry Chernyshenko, who presented the supervisory board’s end-of-year report at Monday’s meeting.
"We have passed an important point in the preparations for the Games and are now entering the phase when functions of the Organizing Committee begin to test their readiness for the Games."
Among the highlights of Chernyshenko’s presentation were reports that 120,000 people visited the Sochi 2014 House during Vancouver 2010 and news that the Games marketing program has attracted more than $1.1 billion to date, a Winter Olympics record.
Drug Test Puts Taurasi in Doubt for London 2012
A positive drug test could keep basketball star Diana Taurasi off Team USA for the London Olympics.
The Turkish basketball federation announced Friday that the two-time WNBA champion and 2009 MVP is provisionally suspended by Fenerbahce of Istanbul because her A sample shows traces of modafinil, a drug most often used by shift workers to enhance vigilance and combat sleep disorders.
Taurasi, 28, led Team USA to gold at the past two Summer Olympics as well as the 2010 FIBA world championship. She plays in FIBA’s EuroLeague during the WNBA offseason.
Friday’s news comes a year after the former University of Connecticut standout spent a day in jail for a DUI charge and just days after UConn set the NCAA Division I record with its 89th consecutive win.
Taurasi’s fate now lies with her as-yet-untested B sample, which will confirm or negate the prior results.
"She doesn’t believe that she’s ever taken anything that’s banned; the most logical explanation at this point is that the test is simply wrong," her lawyer Howard L. Jacobs told The New York Times on Friday.
According to the World Anti-Doping Agency, athletes who take modafinil as a performance-enhancing drug face competitions bans of up to two years.
And according to an IOC rule adopted in 2008, athletes slapped with doping bans longer than six months must sit out the next Olympics, meaning the next few weeks could determine the next few years for women’s basketball’s most decorated star still playing the game.
London Ticket Interest Passes Two-Million Mark
Interest in tickets for London 2012 is at two million and counting.
LOCOGCEO Paul Deighton announced the Games milestone Saturday, adding that he expects another half-million to register before sales begin in March.
"The sheer scale of this is mind-blowing," he was quoted by AFP.
The figures come despite LOCOG’s failure to deliver on a 2004 bid promise that tickets would start at 15 pounds ($23).
The pricing plan unveiled in October has 2.5 million tickets at 20 pounds ($31) but more than 800,000 at over $160, including the most expensive at $1,115 for the men’s 100m track and field final.
"Through all we have actually done, I think that we are pretty much on the money," Deighton said.
Interested parties can register here to receive ticketing updates via email.
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Written by Matthew Grayson.
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