Sochi 2014 Bid Committee at the FIS Nordic Ski World Championships following successful IOC Evaluation Commission visit
Sapporo, Japan, March 2, 2007 – Following the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Evaluation Commission visit to Sochi last week, senior members of the Sochi 2014 Bid Committee, including CEO, Dmitry Chernyshenko and COO, Tatiana Dobrokhvalova, today arrived in Sapporo, Japan, to support the 20 Russian athletes involved in the FIS Nordic Ski World Championships.
During their visit, Sochi 2014 will gain insight from the General Secretary of the Organizing Committee, Mr. Hitoshi Sasaki, and study the Sapporo Nordic Ski World Championships to inform its own Nordic Ski event plans for the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
As part of the Sochi 2014 Games plan, the Cross-Country, Biathlon and Nordic Combined Olympic events will take place at Psekhako Ridge[*] in the snow-covered Krasnaya Polyana mountains, which hosted the IOC Evaluation Commission, President Vladimir Putin, senior Russian officials and the world’s leading media in recent weeks. It was also the venue for the 25th annual ‘All-Russia Ski-Track’ Cross-Country Grand Prix on 21 February, which saw an incredible 580,000 Russians participate in earlier rounds and promises an incredible atmosphere should Sochi win the Games for the first time in Russia’s history.
Dmitry Chernyshenko, Sochi 2014 CEO, said:
“We are proud to be in Sapporo today to experience how successfully hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games can translate into organizing future major sports events, such as the Nordic Ski World Championships. These Championships are an important step for the international development of Nordic Ski disciplines, and our efforts to bring the Winter Games to Russia for the first time reflect a similar drive to encourage the development of winter sport at both grassroots and elite level for generations to come. If Sochi wins the honour of hosting the Winter Games, we too would seek to host several major winter sports events using our state-of-the-art facilities after 2014, and believe the Games would be the catalyst for one of the greatest sporting, social, economic and environmental legacies in Winter Olympics history.”