The ceremony to open the costliest Olympic Games in history has begun in Sochi, with 98 medals to be won over the next 16 days.
The resort, on Russia’s Black Sea coast, will welcome about 2,900 athletes in 15 disciplines.
The build-up has been overshadowed by security fears, human rights concerns and delays to preparations.
But, at £30bn, the cost of these Games is more than the combined total of all other Olympic Winter Games to date.
Canada, Norway and the United States are considered the likeliest candidates to top the Sochi medal table, while Team GB have been set a target of at least three medals in Sochi.
If Britain reach their target, it would mark the team’s best performance in terms of medals won since 1936, while hope is high that Britain could win more than one gold medal at a Winter Olympics for the first time.
The British women’s curling team and skeleton slider Shelley Rudman are both defending world champions, while team-mate Lizzy Yarnold leads the current skeleton rankings.
“I’m a canny Scot so I will err on the side of caution but we have a number of athletes competing at a top-class level in winter sports,” said British chef de mission Mike Hay.
“Without putting any additional pressure on, across more disciplines and more sports than ever before, we’re a strong team. We are confident we will do well and there is a great spirit in the camp.”
Hosting an Olympics for the first time since the boycotted Moscow Games of 1980, Russian athletes are under pressure to improve on the embarrassment of 11th place at the last Winter Games in Vancouver.
The nation has devoted £600m to elite winter sport since winning the bid to host these Games seven years ago.
Russian attention will be focused on the men’s ice hockey team, who have yet to win Olympic gold since the break-up of the Soviet Union (although a Unified Team featuring Russian players won gold in 1992), and popular figure skater Evgeni Plushenko, who has overcome injury to feature in the Games but faces a tough task to win a medal.
Norway will look to biathlon and cross-country skiing for the bulk of their medals, while Canada’s medals will come from short track speed skating, in particular Charles Hamelin, who has the potential to be one of the faces of the Games, as well as freestyle skiing and snowboard.
The United States will expect big things from Alpine skiing and bobsleigh.
In the absence of injured skier Lindsey Vonn, the leading American lights are slalom specialist Mikaela Shiffrin and snowboarder Shaun White – despite his withdrawal from the slopestyle contest on Wednesday, citing concerns over the safety of the course.
No comments:
Post a Comment