Winter Olympics 2014

Sochi (Russia) - Winter Olympics 2014

The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXII Olympic Winter Games, held in Sochi, Russia. The Games were held from 7–23 February 2014. Both the Olympics and 2014 Winter Paralympics were organized by the Sochi Organizing Committee (SOC). It was the first Olympics in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union was the host nation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

A total of 98 events in 15 winter sport disciplines were held during the Games. A number of new competitions—a total of 12 accounting for gender—were held during the Games. From India number of qualifying athletes were three, unfortunately no one win a single medal.

Host nation Russia finished on top of the medal table by winning 33 medals in the tournament.

Top ten Countries who topped the list:

Rank   Country                      Gold          Silver       Bronze             Total

1          Russia (RUS)              13                 11              9                     33

2          Norway (NOR)          11                   5             10                    26

3          Canada (CAN)           10                 10             5                      25

4          United States (USA)    9                    7             12                    28

5          Netherlands (NED)      8                   7              9                      24

6          Germany                      8                   6              5                      19

7          Switzerland                  6                   3              2                      11

8          Belarus                        5                   0              1                      6

9          Austria                         4                   8             5                      17

10        France                         4                   4             7                      15

The organizers of the game focused on modernizing the telecommunications, electric power and transportation infrastructures of the region. While originally budgeted at US$12 billion, various factors caused the budget to expand to over US$51 billion, surpassing the estimated $44 billion cost of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as the most expensive Olympics in history.

For the first time in Olympic history, a public vote was held to decide the mascots for the 2014 Winter Olympics. On 26 February 2011, the official mascots were unveiled, consisting of a polar bear, a snow hare, and a snow leopard.

The torch relay lasted 123 days and it is the longest torch relay in Olympic history, a 64,000 kilometres (40,000 mi) route that passes through all regions of the country, from Kaliningrad in the west to Chukotka in the east excluding Earth orbits in space. A total of 14,000 torch carriers took part in the relay. The Olympic flame was taken to the Caucasus' tallest peak — Mount Elbrus, lowered to the bottom of Lake Baikal, and visited the North Pole and the International Space Station. The Olympic torch reached the North Pole for first time via a nuclear-powered icebreaker (50 Let Pobedy). The torch was also passed for the first time in space, though not lit for the duration of the flight for safety reasons, on flight Soyuz TMA-11M to the International Space Station (ISS).

2018 - Winter Olympics 

It is officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games scheduled to take place in Pyeongchang, South Korea from 9th to 25th February, 2018.