Olympic Notes: One Year To Go Before Sochi 2014 Games Ceremonies

On Feb. 7, Russia will celebrate one year to go until the start of the XXII Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. To mark the occasion, clocks counting down the days to the first Russian Olympic Winter Games will be unveiled in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Pyatigorsk and Khabarovsk (Sochi 2014). ... From Friday through Sunday, the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee will hold three int'l test events at Olympic venues in the Mountain and Coastal Clusters. In addition to the FIS Cross-Country Skiing World Cup, Sochi will be welcoming both participants and spectators to the FIS Nordic Combined World Cup and a stage of the Samsung ISU Short Track World Cup (Sochi 2014). ... London’s West End theaters "brought in record revenues last year, even though they staged fewer performances than normal during the Olympic Games." Sales were up by 0.27% on '11, to £529M ($833M), while attendance also rose slightly to 13 million (FINANCIAL TIMES, 1/29).