Sochi Touts "Unprecedented" Olympic Legacy; London 2012 IT Update

Passion for Sochi Olympics Sparks Big Rise in Sports Participation

Sochi 2014 president and CEO Dmitry Chernyshenko says the legacy of the Winter Olympics is already being seen with sports participation levels rocketing in Russia as a result of the Games.

"We already can witness the legacy of Sochi - last year sport participation in the country increased by 17 percent and by 35 percent in the region where the Games will be held," he said.

Speaking at the International Sports Event Management conference in London Thursday, he said: "Everything we are doing is about legacy. It would be unforgivable to invest such a huge amount of money and effort just for two weeks of fun.

"It’s about a long-lasting legacy for the generations to come, a social and environmental legacy. I’m confident our legacy with be unprecedented."

Chernyshenko's comments came in a conference session focusing on the social and environmental legacy of Russia’s first Winter Olympics Games.

He also spoke about the massive building effort to develop venues and infrastructure for the Games on a fast-track timetable.

"Our disadvantage was having had nothing in Sochi when we started from scratch but that was also a competitive advantage because we were able to create a state-of-the-art infrastructure," he told delegates.

"Russia had to invest more resources and overcome more red-tape barriers than ever before to implement this huge project and pass through a huge gap to reach the appropriate level of environment to bring out the spirit of the new Russia through positive sustainable change.

"The investment to Sochi is so impressive, it is comparable to construction of a new city."

Underlining that the Black Sea resort was now the biggest construction site in Europe if not the world, he added: "We are working 24/7 to deliver more than 800 different venues because we are using this opportunity to develop the entire region. It’s a very ambitious project.

"We are well on track, on budget and on time... and we are already enjoying the legacy now because the preparations are already bringing about some social improvements."

Chernyshenko also spoke briefly about Sochi 2014's Olympic torch relay plans.

"It will be the longest domestic torch relay in the history of the Games. We plan to send the torch to the depths of the world’s largest and deepest lake, to the top of the highest mountain in Europe and even into space," he said.

At the IOC Session in July, Russia's Olympic leaders announced that the 120-day relay will cover 27,300 kilometers with the torch carried by 14,000 torch bearers. The relay will visit Mount Elbrus and Lake Baikal. Deputy prime minister and Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov said the ambition was also "to send it above the earth's atmosphere".

Olympic Truce Sponsors

With a vote looming on the Olympic Truce at the United Nations, 177 countries are now co-sponsors of the truce.

The goal, according to a statement posted on the United Kingdom’s Permanent Mission to the UN, is to have all Member States as sponsors. There are 193 members of the UN General Assembly.

The official title of the Truce is: "Building a peaceful and better world throughsport and the Olympic ideal". LOCOG chairman Sebastian Coe will table the resolution, scheduled for a 10 a.m. vote on Oct. 17.

Ukraine President Wants More Olympic Money

Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich is calling for "proper funding" of the country's London Olympic preparations.

A statement posted on his website quotes him delivering a shot at a political rival, Andriy Klyuyev, saying: "It is estimated that [$53 million] will be spent on the preparation for the Olympics 2012. Only a half of that sum was allocated. We should not protract that until it is too late."

He added: "We should not be saving on that. Because Olympic sports complexes will be serving our athletes in the future."

Yanukovich made the comments at a ceremony congratulating Ukrainian boxers from the boxing world championships earlier this month in Baku.

London 2012 CIO Not Fazed by IT Preparations

Setting up and managing thousands of servers, networks and personal computers for the Olympics, London 2012’s head of IT has hiswork cut out for him.

Chief Information Officer Gerry Pennell says he's actually enjoying his work though.

"This is the point where everyone is working very hard, it's all coming together, and most of my job now is more reactive than it was a year-and-a-half ago, when it was about strategy, finding suppliers, signing contracts, recruiting staff, and gearing up the team.

"We're at the stage now where it's about managing the team and keeping everybody together - I quite enjoy that," Pennell told Computer Weekly.

While the same core systems are used for each Olympics, Pennell’s team will introduce a lot of new developments.

"Quite a lot of the software in London is a new architecture," he said. "We have tried to rethink the way the technology works. There's an awful lot of new software to deal with."

London 2012 organizers also have to deal with the new challenge of social media and Pennell is talking with mobile phone companies and BT, the official communications services partner, about open Wi-Fi in Olympic Park.

"We have worked closely with BT and the mobile operators to make sure there is enough infrastructure to provide a good level of service during the Games," he says.

"But there will always be moments when the demand is so huge in sporting events that not everybody can get access."

Next March and May, Pennell’s team will test the IT systems, simulating a variety of possible problems.

Media Watch

The BBC profiles Russia’s Special School of the Olympic Reserve in Ekaterinaburg, one of many sport schools grooming the next generation of Russian Olympic hopefuls.

Raising the profile of the 2015 Toronto Pan American Games will be a "challenge" according to a report in Canada’s The National Post.

Reported by Christian Radnedge in London and Ann Cantrell in Atlanta

20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.