Sochi: snow, skis and scandals

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/feb/04/sochi-snow-skis-scandals

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Where is Sochi?

It is in the far south-west of Russia, on the north-east coast of the Black Sea, which is a very strange place indeed for a Winter Olympics. First, it is on the doorstep of the north Caucasus, the country's most volatile region. The site of the Beslan school massacre is just 245 miles away. Second, Sochi is a subtropical summer resort town – warmer in an average February than London – and one of the few places in Russia where you might not find snow. Even in the Caucasus mountains where the skiing and sliding events will be held, white slopes are far from guaranteed. The organisers have therefore stored a supply of last year's snow, just in case.

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Who are the sporting stars going to be?

In Russia the big name is Alex Ovechkin, the ice hockey team's best player, and should he win, the symbolism of a resurgent nation will be inescapable. For one thing, the Russian team has not won Olympic gold since they stopped having CCCP on their shirts. For another, victory for Ovechkin would repeat the achievements of his mother, Tatyana Ovechkina, who won basketball gold at the Moscow Olympics in 1980. In figure skating, the South Korean superstar Kim Yu-na will arrive as the reigning world and Olympic champion, and one of the 10 highest-paid female sports stars in the world, according to Forbes magazine. Skateboarder, musician and entrepreneur Shaun White will represent the US, both competitively and culturally, in snowboarding, where he has won the half-pipe twice before. The men's downhill, often considered the showpiece event, looks likely to be a contest between Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal and the American veteran Bode Miller.

What might Britain win?

Not much, although this country has somehow become a global powerhouse in women's skeleton (falling head-first down a mountain on a tea-tray). Shelley Rudman and Lizzy Yarnold are our best hopes, and both are among the three favourites, with Yarnold the favourite overall. The American Noelle Pikus-Pace, back from retirement, is their chief threat. Hopes are also high for the men's and women's curling teams, who are each third favourites in their field, although in both cases Canada and Sweden look some way ahead. Billy Morgan has a decent chance of a medal in the snowboarding slopestyle (doing jumps and tricks), as do James Woods and Katie Summerhayes, both just 18, at slopestyle skiing.

How ethical are the games?

Hmmm ... turning Sochi into a winter resort has been a vast project, during which rivers have been polluted by construction waste and previously protected forests chopped down. The operation has cost the Russian state around $51bn, making it the most expensive games, summer or winter, of all time. Indeed, $51bn is more than was spent on all the previous Winter Olympics put together. Of that, $7.4bn worth of contracts went to companies linked to Vladimir Putin's judo partner. Another friend of the president's built the $9bn road linking Sochi with the mountains. Workers have been poorly paid and overworked, according to the Economist, with no safety training or insurance, and dozens have died in accidents. The state body responsible, Olympstroy, has been involved in lots of rather murky overspending, but the details of that are "classified". There has also been a mass extermination of Sochi's stray dogs.

Is the whole thing really about politics?

Yes. Just as China announced itself as a superpower with the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Putin wants Russia to regain that status here, and with the 2018 World Cup. Personally, during a period of declining popularity, he has a lot invested in the games – and so do his opponents. Some want to bring attention to Russia's anti-gay laws. The Australian snowboarder Belle Brockhoff has promised to hold up six fingers when the camera is on her, symbolising "principle six" of the IOC charter, which states that discrimination is "incompatible" with the Olympic movement. Amnesty International also claims that harassment of civil society activists has intensified as the games approach, citing the environmental campaigner Yevgeny Vitishko, who has been arrested in Sochi and charged with "petty hooliganism" for allegedly swearing at a bus stop. The recent bombings in nearby Volgograd, and the proximity of the Caucasus, have also raised the likelihood of terrorism. As a result, Sochi is now guarded like a fortress, with drones, submarines, missiles and 100,000 security and military personnel on hand. Even Russians need a special passport to visit.

Who are the cult stars going to be?

This is a hotly contested field. Mexico, for instance, will be represented in Alpine skiing by a 55-year-old German prince wearing a skintight mariachi costume. Hubertus Von Hohenlohe is the man's name, and how he came to be skiing for Mexico is a long story, but you may not be surprised to hear that he regards the sport "more as an amateur, gentleman's racing sort of thing". If anything, however, the story behind Bruno Banani, a luger from Tonga and the country's first ever Winter Olympian, is even stranger. Banani was first revealed to the world in Germany, where he was sponsored by an underwear manufacturer, whose exact name – by coincidence – he shared. Soon, however, it became clear that something even odder than a coincidence was going on. The Tongan's real name was Fuahea Semi, but after he came to Germany to learn the luge he had been persuaded by Bruno Banani to change it as a marketing ploy to sell more pants. Now – most incredibly of all – he has actually become quite good at the luge and is going to compete at Sochi.

What's on TV?

An awful lot – and almost everything if you watch online. Coverage of the opening ceremony is on BBC2 from 3.30pm to 7.15pm on Friday. From then on there will be three live slots – morning, afternoon and evening – and then a primetime roundup every day until the closing ceremony on 23 February. Men's downhill is in the morning on Sunday the 9th. Ladies Singles Figure Skating is in the afternoons of the 19th and 20th. Women's skeleton is on the morning of the 13th and the afternoon of the 14th.