In a €520 million stadium that will be used for the opening and closing ceremonies and then a couple of times a year between now and the 2018 World Cup, the most expensive Olympics in history officially gets under way tonight (4pm Irish time).
At an estimated final bill of somewhere in the region of €37.5 billion, Sochi 2014 will come in just over €2 billion short of the combined cost of the London and Beijing Olympics.
For that kind of lolly, it’s little wonder the organisers are confident that the whole jamboree will kick-start without a hitch. Security is vast and conspicuous, from the guards who patrol every inch of road, rail and mountain pass to the 10,000 CCTV cameras newly-installed around the city.
Two US Navy warships have entered the Black Sea in case American athletes have to be evacuated in the event of a terror attack. The Irish Times had two apples confiscated yesterday during a security check at Sochi's main railway station. The two incidents are not thought to have been related.
Intervention
Given that the other main item of news in the run-up to the games has been Russia's attitude to LGBT people, an unexpected intervention came yesterday from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon ahead of a personal meeting with Vladimir Putin.
In a speech to IOC delegates, Ban stressed it was a simple matter of human rights for sport to fight against homophobia.
“Many professional athletes, gay and straight, are speaking out against prejudice,” he said. “We must all raise our voices against attacks on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex people. We must oppose the arrests, imprisonments and discriminatory restrictions they face.
"The United Nations stands strongly behind our own 'free and equal' campaign, and I look forward to working with the IOC, governments and other partners around the world to build societies of equality and tolerance. Hatred of any kind must have no place in the 21st century."
Opening ceremony
Though the opening ceremony isn't until tonight, the first sport of the games got unde way yesterday. Up in the mountain region of Krasnaya Polyana, the first of the snowboarding events started while last night saw the start of the figure skating programme in the Iceberg Skating Palace.
A 12,000-seater arena built for €38 million, it contains 15,000 tonnes of steel. For anyone wondering if that’s a lot, it’s twice the amount it took to build the Eiffel Tower.
