Friday, 21 February 2014

Sochi 2014’s mountain venues to provide sport and tourism legacies

KALYAN KUMAR MAHATA The true appellation of Apu.

Sochi 2014’s mountain venues to provide sport and tourism legacies

Sochi 2014’s mountain venues to provide sport and tourism legacies
©Getty Images (3)
21/02/2014
Each of the venues in Sochi 2014’s “Mountain Cluster” is set to provide long-term sporting and tourism legacies once the Winter Games have finished. Four of the five venues, which are all nestled amid the spectacular peaks of the Caucasus, will become snow sport resorts, offering accommodation as well as world-class snow sport facilities.
They are the RusSki Gorki Jumping Centre, home to ski jumping and Nordic combined, the Rosa Khutor Alpine Centre, the venue for Alpine skiing, the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, which hosts freestyle skiing and snowboarding, and the Laura Cross Country Ski and Biathlon Centre, which is on the other side of the valley to the Alpine events.

The Sanki Sliding Centre, meanwhile, which has hosted bobsleigh, skeleton and luge events during the Sochi Games, will remain a training and competition venue, while the Gorki Media Centre will host the G8 Summit in June and the Athletes’ Village will be converted into tourist accommodation.
As well as providing national training centres for Russia’s next generation of Winter Olympians, each of the sports venues will be capable of hosting other elite sporting events, including World Cups and World Championships, which will bring further economic benefits to the local area.

Infrastructure improvements ahead of the Games, including new roads and a railway line, have also made the mountains far more accessible to visitors, while investments have also been made in cableways, gondolas, new hotels and other tourist accommodation to ensure that Rosa Khutor becomes a thriving resort after the Games.
"We believe that we were quite successful in creating this world-class resort, at least the best in Russia," explains Sergey Belikov, the Rosa Khutor Alpine Resort manager. "We believe that we will be able to provide services to a whole range of tourists."
After the Games, the resort will capable of hosting up to 10,000 people a day and consists of two zones - a lower hospitality zone and an upper zone with 77km of ski tracks and runs.
The hospitality zone features an impressive stretch of hotels, cafes, pubs and restaurants as well as an ice-skating rink along the banks of the Mzymta River.
The resort is due to open on 22 March.

No comments: