Welcome to the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi.

Welcome to the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi.

The 2014 Winter Olympics,or the 22nd Winter Olympics, will be celebrated from 7 to 23 February 2014, in Sochi, Russia, with some events held in the resort town of Krasnaya Polyana. Ninety-eight events in fifteen winter sports will be held. Both the Olympic and Paralympic Games are being organized by the Sochi Organizing Committee (SOC).

The Sochi Olympics are the first Winter Olympics for the Russian Federation,as the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow were in the Soviet Union.

Russia is providing nearly 327 billion rubles for the total development, expansion and hosting of the Games.

The Sochi Olympic Park will be built by the Black Sea coast in the Imeretin Valley.The transportation infrastructure being prepared to support the Olympics includes many roads, tunnels, bridges, interchanges, railroads and stations in and around Sochi.The Sochi Light Metro will be constructed between Adler and Krasnaya Polyana to connect the Olympic Park, the airport and the venues in Krasnaya Polyana

On 26 February 2011, at 11.20 pm (GMT+3) the final results of the public vote during the live television show "Talismaniya Sochi 2014 – The Final” were announced on the first Channel. The election council made the decision that the top-three characters with the maximum number of votes would all become the Olympic Winter Games mascots:

• the Polar Bear (by Oleg Serdechniy, Sochi),
• the Hare (by Silviya Petrova, New Buyanovo village of Yankovsky region, Chuvash Republic)
• the Leopard (by Vadim Pak, Nakhodka)

All three animals are indigenous to Southern Russia in the Caucasus Mountains near Sochi.

Commenting on the results of the live vote, Dmitry Chernyshenko, President and CEO of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee, said:

«Today, the Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have adopted its own symbols and, for the first time in the history of the Olympic Movement, the whole country was involved in choosing the mascots. There are three mascots for the Olympic Winter Games, representing the three places on the Olympic podium. All top-three characters according to the Olympic system will become the Olympic Winter Games mascots. The mascots are the choice of the whole our country and will remain in the history of the Olympic movement».

Fifteen winter sport disciplines, organized as seven olympic sports, were included in the 2014 Winter Olympics. The three skating sports disciplines were: figure skating, speed skating, and short track speed skating. The six skiing sport disciplines were: alpine, cross-country skiing, freestyle, Nordic combined, ski jumping and  snowboarding. The two bobsleigh sports disciplines are: bobsleigh and skeleton. The other four sports were: biathlon, curling, hockey, and luge. A total of twelve new events will be contested to make it the largest Winter Olympics to date.

So in conclusion I should say that the Olimpyc Games are needed for all people because they help them to unite for a while on a base of sport and to provide them some impressions which they couldn't get elsewhere.