Sochi Facing Numerous Obstacles Ahead Of '14 Olympic Games
Russia's "Olympic dream is in trouble," as construction of the '14 Sochi Games' "grandiose Olympic facilities has hardly started," according to Luke Harding of the Manchester GUARDIAN. Environmentalists have "protested that several of the major arenas are being built slap in the middle of a nature reserve, causing incalculable damage to the region's bio-diversity." Sochi's key investors "have run out of cash," and in "further humiliation locals have nicked part of the blue fence surrounding the so far unbuilt Olympic village." The economic crisis in Russia has "led to surging unemployment, rising food prices, a 30% devaluation of the rouble and the first stirrings of popular unrest against an increasingly autocratic Kremlin." The "meltdown has caused huge problems for the country's industrial oligarchs, who have found themselves suddenly unable to pay back western loans." SOCOG "shrugs off suggestions that ... the Games are now in jeopardy." Russia Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who is overseeing preparations for the Games, said, "Everything is guaranteed. Everything is OK. The world economic crisis hasn't changed anything." Sochi 2014 CEO Dmitry Chernyshenko: "We enjoy a sort of Olympic immunity. The Games are underwritten." Chernyshenko said that the event has "already attracted half a billion dollars in sponsorship." Analysts "agree there is no possibility that Russia will allow the Games to fail." However, many are "beginning to wonder whether the Games are worth it and if the IOC was wise to hand the Olympics to a city with no infrastructure whatsoever" (Manchester GUARDIAN, 3/17).
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