Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/120608
2014 Winter Olympics Russia: Grand Sochi $50 Billion Project high-speed rail line will link the mountain venues with the seaside stadiums, a journey expected to take 45 minutes. "You can go to downhill alpine skiing events in the morning and watch track and figure skating in the evening," U.S. Olympic Committee official Patrick Sandusky said. The snow-covered mountains tower above the subtropical beach, a stunning vista by any standard —but what sets Sochi apart from other seaside resorts is its sheer scale of concrete and steel. It's a grand project that Vladimir Putin hopes will transform an ailing region of Russia and will make a bold statement of intent, using A sports as the fulcrum—much in the way that China did with its Olympics in 2008 and Qatar hopes to do with soccer's World Cup in 2020. At a reported $50 billion and rising, Russia's first Winter Olympics will be the most expensive in history— topping the eye-watering $40 billion Beijing Summer Games. "I've heard it's the world's largest construction site right now, and I can see that," says U.S. Olympic Committee official Patrick Sandusky. One of the six new stadiums will be used solely for the opening and closing ceremonies. Spiraling costs With a year to go before the 2014 Winter Games, much of the Black Sea city is still a mass of scaffolding. "The noise of construction is everywhere," reports CNN's Phil Black from Sochi, which he describes as "a rundown Soviet-era resort town crippled by terrible traffic." Costs have spiraled since Russia was awarded the Games in 2007, and the stakes are high as the Kremlin makes an ambitious flexing of financial muscle that will also include hosting soccer's World Cup in 2018. Recently, Putin visited Sochi to see how construction was progressing. Unhappy with ballooning costs and a ski jump facility that is two years behind schedule and still unfinished, he reportedly promptly sacked vice president of Russia's Olympic Committee Akhmed Bilalov. "Part of the investment that Russia has made is not only what the world will see in Russia, but also they're building a winter paradise that they hope to showcase through the Olympic broadcast and attract tourism in the future," says 2010 Vancouver champion Bill Demong, who competed at a Nordic combined skiing test event in Sochi. They have not only connected Sochi to Sochi, host of the 2014 Winter Olympics 30 IDA UNIVERSAL March-April 2013