Date
Author
Ольга ЕРМОЛИНА; Андрей ДЕНИСОВ
Source
Preserved copy
Translated material
Roller in a bag
To get the Olympics in Sochi, Russia will stage an ice show right at the IOC session
Six days later - on the night of July 5 - the capital of the 2014 Winter Olympics will be chosen at the 119th session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). According to the latest data from the independent American analytical agency Around the Five Rings, the chances of all three candidate cities to host the 2014 Winter Olympics look absolutely equal. South Korean Pyeongchang, Austrian Salzburg and Russian Sochi scored 83 points out of 110 possible according to the conventional scoring system. On the eve of the final vote in Guatemala, delegations from all three cities will try to convince, or rather, surprise the IOC members with unusual surprises. The main feature of the Russian application will be the ice show. For this purpose, a real skating rink has already been delivered to Guatemala from Russia.In terms of size, the Russian ice arena in Guatemala will be inferior to standard skating rinks. The ice covering will be placed on a small area of 20 by 40 meters and, apparently, will be placed in an imported tent. Russian figure skaters - participants in the Channel One show "Stars on Ice" - have already carried out a similar experiment in Singapore, where an economic forum was held in April. The same skating rink was installed during the June Economic Forum in St. Petersburg.
According to the 2006 Olympic champion in pair skating, Maxim Marinin, who competed in Singapore, members of the official delegations present at the forum were shocked not only by the programs of the Russian figure skaters, but also by the very presence of ice in the middle of the hot summer. “Nobody thought we could do this. The ice was laid literally overnight. As far as I know, a special installation was delivered from Moscow to prepare ice. The organizer of the Ice Symphony ice show, Ilya Averbukh, has already done something similar in Russia, when we toured different cities. Some of them did not have ice skating rinks at all, and I think it was then that Ilya came up with this idea,” Maxim Marinin told Vremya Novostey.
According to the skater, the structure itself, inside which the athletes performed, looked like a “Russian pie.” A large cozy tent, a miniature ice rink, along the edges of which there were tables for spectators. “It was not difficult to skate, since the TV program “Stars on Ice” on Channel One was filmed on exactly the same box. So we managed to adapt,” explained Maxim Marinin.
Among those in the forefront of the Russian delegation who have already flown to Guatemala is the 2006 Olympic champion in single skating, Evgeni Plushenko. Although the athlete missed the entire last season in amateur sports, he actively toured with a new show program. Most likely, Plushenko will be accompanied by other domestic ice stars. After all, many of them live in the USA, which makes it easier for them to travel.
General Director of the Sochi 2014 Bid Committee Dmitry Chernyshenko confirmed to Vremya News that an ice extravaganza awaits the participants of the IOC session: “We have prepared several surprises for Guatemala. In the final, when we have already conveyed to the IOC members all the technical advantages of the Sochi application, it is important for us to convince them also emotionally. A spectacular show on ice will help us with this, which will show Russia as a country capable of hosting the best Winter Olympics in history."
The two-year PR campaign of the Sochi 2014 bid committee was notable for its ingenuity. It is no coincidence that, according to the same agency “Around the Five Rings”, it was rated nine points. For comparison, PyeongChang's marketing PR received eight points, and Salzburg's only six. So in this area we have already surpassed our competitors. A recent example of the flight of fancy of Russian Olympic PR specialists is the “master class” of the famous Russian tennis player, a student of the Sochi school, Maria Sharapova, in one of the squares in London. There, overnight, the sultry European summer, thanks to unique scenery, turned into a corner of winter Sochi. The scope and imagination with which all this was done amazed everyone.
The idea of a skating rink in the middle of summer in warm Guatemala right at the IOC session, where the election of the Olympic capital of the 2014 Winter Games is taking place, also looks like a spectacular move. The language of figure skating does not require translation, and the performances of Russian champions have always been particularly emotional. This, by the way, cannot be combined with the words of IOC President Jacques Rogge that the “human factor” will play a key role in choosing the capital of the 2014 Winter Games.
The International Olympic Committee recently published a list of IOC members who will not participate in the first round of voting in the elections in Guatemala. Of the 111 IOC members, nine people are deprived of the right to vote in the first round - IOC head Jacques Rogge, representatives of Russia - Vitaly Smirnov, Shamil Tarpishchev and Alexander Popov, representatives of Austria - Leo Wallner and South Korea - Kun Hee Lee and Yong Sun Park . In accordance with the Olympic Charter, representatives of Germany do not participate in the vote, since some of the sites included in Salzburg's bid are based in that country.