On-the-Scene -- Bach Urges Sochi to Maintain Prep Speed

(ATR) At the 100-day countdown to the Sochi Olympics, Thomas Bach tells Around the Rings that organizers cannot afford to be complacent in their final preparations.

"The last 100 days of Olympic preparations are always the most difficult ones," Bach told ATR.

Asked if Sochi organizers would go right to the wire, he said, "There is every reason to be confident but no reason to be complacent.

"This is what our Russian friends know and they are working hard. When you see what they have achieved in the last years, then you know why we are very confident that everything will be in place for the Games."

Over the past two days, Bach has toured the mountain venues in Krasnaya Polyana and the coastal cluster 45 kilometers away. The Olympic Park boasts six competition venues, including the Fisht Olympic Stadium, the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies, and the Bolshoi Ice Palace, the main venue for ice hockey.

"The venues are excellent. The Olympic Villages are excellent. The athletes will have really great conditions here. It’s state-of-the-art," he said.

"The villages are not only offering a high quality of living but most of them are within walking distance to the competition sites."

His comments came hours before he opened the IOC World Sport and Environment conference at the Radisson Blu Hotel on Sochi’s Olympic Park by the Black Sea.

ATR is told that the German IOC chief gathered a small group of IOC members, who are here for the conference, to sit down with Russian Olympic officials. Britain’s Craig Reedie and IOC Athletes’ Commission chairman Claudia Bokel were among those lunching with Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov, IOC member Vitaly Smirnov, and other senior Olympic officials.

The most notable dinner guest was IOC member Pal Schmitt, the former Hungarian president, who was asked to relinquish his chairmanship of the Sport and Environment Commission earlier this year over a Hungarian university plagiarism scandal.

Despite a university court determining he plagiarized large portions of his 1992 doctoral thesis, Schmitt has maintained that he was not guilty of plagiarism or any ethical misconduct.

The IOC Executive Board issued him with a warning in May and said he would remain an IOC member despite the scandal.

The ruling paved the way for Schmitt to return to attending IOC meetings for the first time in more than a year.The Sport and Environment conference is one of his first major meetings.

Bach has a hectic schedule on the sidelines of the conference, as cranes and diggers whir noisily 24/7 and construction workers set about putting the final touches on venues and landscaping the Olympic Park.

On Wednesday morning, Bach visited the Bosco store in downtown Sochi, where the sports apparel supplier launched the uniforms that the 25,000 volunteers will wear during the Games.

He also visited the Russian International Olympic University (RIOU) in the city, where he was given a tour around the facilities by its rector, Professor Lev Belousov. Jean-Claude Killy, IOC coordination commission chair for Sochi 2014, and Olympic Games executive director Gilbert Felli were part of the IOC delegation that accompanied Bach.

"It will be a great legacy, not only for Sochi and Russia but for the international world of sport," Bach told ATR, noting that the students were drawn from 14 countries. "I think they can all play an important role in international sports management in the future."

Bach was particularly complimentary of the university’s flagship Master of Sport Administration course, and gave a short speech to the first intake of MSA students before answering their questions about his plans for the IOC presidency and the future of the Olympic Movement.

One of the questions was about the future of Olympic bidding.

Bach restated comments he has made in recent months, saying that cities wanting to stage the Games should be more creative in their bid book and try to tailor their projects to fit their own needs rather than relying on "cookie-cutter" Olympic concepts.

Sochi 2014 president and CEO Dmitry Chernyshenko said the RIOU was a crucial element of the city’s legacy promise to the IOC.

"This was a key element of our vision for RIOU and I was there with IOC president Rogge when he laid the first foundation stone in 2010," he said. "It gives me great pride to know that the new IOC president has today visited the completed campus that will be supporting the Olympic Movement long after the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have moved on to the next hosts."

Sochi 2014 Starting at 20:14

The 2014 Olympics will start at 20:14, or 8:14 PM local time on Feb. 7. That’s when the Sochi opening ceremony will start.

Sochi 2014 made the announcement in a statement on Wednesday. Organizers said it "symbolizes the year that the first ever Olympic Winter Games will be staged in Russia."

The ceremony will last for "approximately" three hours at Fisht Stadium. No other details were revealed, other than the show will feature dance and acrobatic performances.

Written by Mark Bissonin Sochi

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