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Impressions of Sochi

Canada's 2014 Chef de Mission, Steve Podborski, says Sochi games on track
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ON SCHEDULE Sochi 2014 organizers are on schedule, if not on budget, on their Olympic venues. This building, pictured in 2011, will host the figure skating events. Shutterstock Photo

We're less than a year away from the opening ceremonies of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, and Canada's Chef de Mission for the team, Steve Podborski, recently completed a tour of the Games' venues and facilities.

While there are some issues with snow and cost overruns (see sidebar: Sochi Test Events), Podborski was generally impressed by what he saw — the quality of the venues and the infrastructure for the ski resort, a lot of which had to be built from scratch. There's never been a Games this expensive, $51 billion so far, where virtually every building, venue and piece of infrastructure had to be constructed.

Podborksi returned home to Canada on Feb. 10, and Pique caught up with the jet-lagged Chef on Monday.

Pique: How did everything look? You hear a lot about the snow there this winter, but is everything in place? Are things still being built?

Podborski: You have to remember that my lens on Sochi is as the leader of the Olympic team so I was really more focused on venues and how things are going to work for our guys, the men and women on the team.

I can say that the sport venues are incredibly compact. For example, the Olympic ice rinks are only 50 to 100 metres apart from each other in a great big semi-circle of a building, and the plaza for the opening ceremonies dominates the south end of the plaza. And just 50 kilometres away is all of the mountain stuff. So everything is very close together compared to Vancouver, and all the venues are pretty much done. For us, it's a piece of cake.

Pique: Did you get a chance to look at the athletes' villages and look at things like food?

Podborski: There are really three villages, one for endurance athletes, the mountain village and the coastal village. They are all built and they have dining halls where different food from the various continents is going to be served every day. All of it's very, very nice. I also got a chance to go out with the skeleton team for dinner and we went to a typical Russian restaurant to see how locals eat. It's very hearty fare, meats and rice and salads and cheeses. Very Russian.

Pique: What were they saying about the snow? Are people concerned or is this just a bad year?

Podborski: I think the organizers are concerned, but they're not overly concerned or freaking out or anything. They had this idea that they'd store snow over the summer and re-use it next winter, which they've done for this year, but it looks like they'll have to store more next year in case it's warm. It was close to record highs there for this time of year.

But look at Vancouver. Normally the North Shore mountains will have five metres of snow, and then we had an almost drought during the Olympic year before it started to rain. You're always going to have weather when you have a ski area on the ocean, or in this case a sea like the Black Sea. Sochi has palm trees, and is probably one of the warmest spots ever to host the Games.

If anything this was a little yellow flag going up to make sure that they're doing a better job (with snow) and to make sure they have a ton of snow set aside.

Pique: Did anything stick out that could be a concern for the Canadian athletes or organizers?

Podborski: Mainly that it's a long, long way away and everybody has to get in there a little early. I actually spoke with the German national Olympic committee and they're putting pressure on Lufthansa (airline) to start doing direct flights to Sochi next year. So access is important. But for us there's nothing different from Vancouver, we're building on an amazing performance here and we suspect that we'll be even better there.

Pique: One of the big issues has been getting the NHL to release hockey players to play in the Olympics, but those talks stopped when the lockout hit. What's the sense over in Sochi, are organizers confident that the NHL is going to let the players go?

Podborski: It seems like there's some optimism there, certainly. The way I look at it, and this is my personal opinion, is that I can't imagine that the Russians (in the NHL) aren't going to go and play in these Games. I'm pretty sure they're going to turn up and all the other players as well.

Pique: Each Games builds on the last one. Are there any things that the Russians have learned from us?

Podborski: There were quite a few things. Some of them were kind of interesting. Remember when it was so warm (in 2010) that officials were worried that the jumps wouldn't stay together for moguls? What the course crews did was fill tubes with dry ice and stick them into the jumps to cool the snow. They've taken that idea and some others too.

Their sliding track is a lot like ours as well, although it has three uphill sections in it... I talked to the athletes and they say it's fun.

Pique: Will the Games seem familiar to athletes and fans, or are things very different?

Podborski: They have some things that will be familiar, but they also have some quite different things. The really different thing is that they've built virtually all of the venues. I can't think of any major venue that existed before they won the Games. If you went there five years ago there was a ski hill, but it was small. You wouldn't recognize the place today. They've built, I don't know how many hotels and residences, the village is all new. It's crazy.

Pique: Are people using the venues already? Is this going to be a viable resort in the future?

Podborski: I think so, if enough people turn up. One reason Whistler worked so well is because Vancouver, and also Seattle are nearby and the rubber-tire market helps sustain the resort through the ebbs and flows. Sochi is a relatively small area on the coastline, they don't have any major cities nearby, so they have to hope that everyone from Moscow flies down there in the winter as well as the summer. In the summer it's a popular beach resort.

Pique: Will the mountain resorts do things to attract summer business as well? Are they putting in a bike park or anything?

Podborski: Right now they're still putting up lifts in there, so I don't think they've had time to think that far ahead. Everyone is focused on the Games.

Pique: Was anybody out there skiing?

Podborski: We went with the other Chefs de Missions to look at all the venues, and one area we visited was the finish line for all the alpine events — they have one giant finish area there which is super cool — but while we were standing there and getting the talk about everything and where the athletes were going to be and access and all that, we could see people skiing by in the background. It's definitely being used.