Russians rejoice at 2014 Games victory
GUATEMALA CITY: Ecstasy engulfed Russia's Sochi delegation on Wednesday when International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge announced that the Black Sea resort would host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Ministers and sports officials hugged each other and laughed like children unable to believe what had happened at the IOC session in the unlikely venue of Guatemala City.
"God and our people were with us, we made it," Vladislav Fetisov, prominent ice hockey player and sports minister said.
By a narrow margin of four votes, Sochi beat South Korea's Pyeongchang in the second round of voting to give Russia the right to host a second Olympics after the Summer Games staged in Moscow in 1980.
The Sochi bid was important for a Russia which is recovering after a post-Soviet decline with strong economic development.
"This is international recognition of the new Russia," said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov. "The fact that the country could win in such a race shows that there are no plans it cannot accomplish."
He later told a news conference the Olympic bid was broadly backed by the people.
"It has inspired the nation and brought a sense of pride in the national cause," Zhukov said.
Major accomplishments
Wednesday's win was also likely to be seen as one of the major accomplishments of President Vladimir Putin, who has presided over seven years of Russian resurgency and who has to step down next year.
Putin threw his weight behind the Sochi bid and campaigned for its victory in Guatemala before leaving the city earlier on Wednesday.
"The president's role cannot be over-estimated," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "He did all he could.
"Putin is happy with the victory," he added. "There is a lot of work to be done now, but no doubt, the job will be done excellently."
With heavy state support, the Sochi Olympics are unlikely to face serious financial problems. Their $1.5 billion operational budget is solidly backed by $12 billion allocated by the government for the creation of an international class sports and recreational zone in the region.
But politics may well interfere, although not as heavily as in 1980 when the Moscow Olympics were soured by an international boycott over the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.
Rights campaigners have said granting Russia the right to host the Olympics would give additional support to its government, which they blame for rolling back on democracy - accusations the Kremlin flatly denies.
However, answering a question at a post-victory news conference in Guatemala, the bid leader Dmitry Chernyshenko said the Games would help develop Russia's fledging democracy.
"The Olympic Games Russia was rewarded with will be accelerating the growth of Russia's democracy," he said. "There is no doubt, they will help make Russia more internationally orientated, more democratic."
Agencies
(China Daily 07/06/2007 page23)
