Darkness is the friend of the Olympics

The IOC Evaluation Commission in Sochi will not see any problems

A meeting of the coordination council was held in Sochi to prepare the city for the visit of the evaluation commission of the International Olympic Committee. The results of this visit determine whether Sochi will receive the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. According to Dmitry Chernyshenko, general director of the Sochi 2014 bid committee, the IOC has already approved a plan for the assessment commission to stay in Sochi. Moreover, the route of movement of the experts and the time they spent at each of the agreed points are determined with an accuracy of one meter and one minute. Sochi officials can breathe a sigh of relief: the likelihood that commission members will suddenly go somewhere in the wrong place is now minimal.

The fact is that the mayor of Sochi, chairman of the headquarters for preparing for the visit of the IOC evaluation commission, Viktor Kolodyazhny, kept the city in suspense throughout the last quarter of the year. At every meeting, he frightened his subordinates that the commission members would go wherever they wanted and whenever they wanted, without warning anyone in advance. As a result, a truly titanic work has unfolded at the resort to restore order even in those places that might just catch the eye of IOC experts. The newspaper “Vremya Novostey” has already written about the urgent completion of the new air terminal complex at Sochi airport before the arrival of the commission and about how Sochi residents are urgently redoing the landscape that opens before everyone who leaves the terminal building. More than 10 tons of paint were used just to paint private houses in the village of Moldovka, which occupies a significant part of this landscape. It was distributed to village residents free of charge.

But now that the plan for the visit of the IOC evaluation commission to Sochi, scheduled minute by minute, has become known, the problem of the landfill near the airport seems to have disappeared by itself: the commission will arrive at the resort late in the evening of February 18, and in the dark this landfill is not visible. When the plane with the appraisers starts taking off from the airport, under no circumstances will they be able to see the landfill: the angle will be different.

And in general, as Dmitry Chernyshenko said, the IOC experts’ schedule at the Russian resort is so tight, they have so much work to do that any surprises are unlikely. Mr. Chernyshenko noted that experts have the opportunity to change the pre-planned route, but this requires very compelling reasons. Apparently, now in Sochi, preparations for the commission’s visit will be focused on completely eliminating the reasons why experts might want to visit something that was not included in the already approved plan.

The plan states that the IOC commission will work in Sochi from February 20 to 24. The day of February 19 is designated as a day off, but with a high degree of probability it can be assumed that on this day the commission members will meet at the Sochi residence of the Russian President “Bocharov Ruchey” with Vladimir Putin, who, as already reported, will fly to Sochi specifically to receive IOC experts and support the Olympic claims of Sochi residents. In the following days, members of the commission will inspect sites by the sea, in the Imereti Lowland, and in the mountains, in the village of Krasnaya Polyana, where the construction of Olympic facilities is expected.

There are no objects themselves yet - the competitions that determined the organizations that will design these objects just recently ended in Sochi. But full-scale models and stands with three-dimensional computer models of future structures will be prepared at the sites.

And to ensure that all presentations go smoothly, training will begin in Sochi immediately after the New Year holidays for those who will be involved in supporting the visit of the IOC evaluation commission. A dress rehearsal for the visit is planned at the resort in early February. The role of the commission will be played by Viktor Kolodyazhny and Dmitry Chernyshenko.

Igor GLANIN, Sochi