2014 Winter Olympics

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For the Summer Youth Olympics held in Nanjing, China, see 2014 Summer Youth Olympics.

XXII Olympic Winter Games

Host city

Sochi, Russia

Motto

Hot. Cool. Yours.[1]

(Russian: . . .)

Nations participating

88

Athletes participating

2,873

Events

98 in 7 sports (15 disciplines)

Opening ceremony

7 February

Closing ceremony

23 February

Officially opened by

President Vladimir Putin

Athlete's Oath

Ruslan Zakharov[2]

Judge's Oath

Vyacheslav Vedenin, Jr[3]

Coach's Oath

Anastasia Popkova [2]

Olympic Torch

Vladislav Tretiak
Irina Rodnina

Stadium

Fisht Olympic Stadium

Part of a series on

2014 Winter Olympics[show]

Sochi from space

The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXII Olympic Winter Games (French: Les XXIIes
Jeux olympiques d'hiver) (Russian: XXII , tr. XXII Olimpiyskiye zimniye
igry) and commonly known as Sochi 2014, were a major international multi-sport eventheld from
February 7 to February 23, 2014 in Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, with opening rounds in certain
events held on the eve of theopening ceremony, 6 February 2014. Both the Olympics and 2014
Winter Paralympics were organized by the Sochi Organizing Committee(SOOC). Sochi was selected
as the host city in July 2007, during the 119th IOC Session held in Guatemala City. It was the first
Olympics in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union was the host
nation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
A total of 98 events in 15 winter sport disciplines were held during the Games. A number of new
competitionsa total of 12 accounting for genderwere held during the Games,
including biathlon mixed relay, women's ski jumping, mixed-team figure skating, mixedteam luge, half-pipe skiing, ski and snowboard slopestyle, and snowboard parallel slalom. The
events were held around two clusters of new venues: an Olympic Park constructed in
Sochi's Imeretinsky Valley on the coast of the Black Sea, with Fisht Olympic Stadium, and the
Games' indoor venues located within walking distance, and snow events in the resort
settlement of Krasnaya Polyana.
In preparation, organizers focused on modernizing the telecommunications, electric power,
and transportation infrastructures of the region. While originally budgeted at US$12 billion, various
factors caused the budget to expand to over US$51 billion, surpassing the estimated $44 billion cost
of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as the most expensive Olympics in history.
The lead-up to these Games was marked by several major controversies, including allegations that
corruption among officials led to the aforementioned cost overruns, concerns for the safety
of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) athletes and spectators due to the effects of
the Russian LGBT propaganda law, protests by ethnic Circassian activists over the site of Sochi
(where they believe a genocide took place in the 19th century), and threats by jihadist groups tied to
the insurgency in the North Caucasus. However, following the closing ceremony, commentators
evaluated the Games to have been overall successful. [4][5]

In the years following the Sochi Olympics, accusations were made that Russia presided over a staterun program which supplied their athletes with performance-enhancing drugs. It was alleged by the
former director of Russia's anti-doping laboratory, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, that a conspiracy of
corrupt anti-doping officials, FSB intelligence agents, and compliant Russian athletes used banned
substances to gain an unfair advantage during the Games.[6] Rodchenkov stated that the FSB
tampered with over 100 urine samples as part of a cover-up, and that a third of the Russian medals
won at Sochi were the result of doping.[7] Following these revelations, the World Anti-Doping
Agency suspended Russia'strack and field team in November 2015.