YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Around 6 thousand participants will be involved in 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi of which 3 thousand athletes from more than 90 countries. 

“Armenpress” informs it citing gazeta.ru website. It is believed that 1 million spectators will visit the Olympic competitions and more than 3 billion fans will watch the games on TV.

The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXII Olympic Winter Games, will be the next Winter Olympics to be held from February 7 to February 23, 2014 in Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The city was elected on July 4, 2007, during the 119th International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Guatemala City, Guatemala. This will be the first time that the Russian Federation will host the Winter Olympics; the Soviet Union hosted the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow. 

The Games will be organized within two clusters, a coastal cluster in Sochi and a mountain cluster in Krasnaya Polyana.

The Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee (SOOC) was established on October 2, 2007 by the Russian Olympic Committee, the Federal Agency for Physical Culture and Sports, and the Administration of the City of Sochi. SOOC Chief Executive Officer Dmitry Chernyshenko. 

The Olympic infrastructure is being constructed according to a Federal Target Programme (FTP). 

The Sochi Olympic Park will be built by the Black Sea coast in the Imereti Valley. The venues will be clustered around a central water basin on which the Medals Plaza will be built. This will provide a great compactness of the concept with the Olympic Stadium and all indoor venues of the Olympics gathered within walking distance. 

The new venues to be built for the Games: Bolshoi Ice Palace - ice hockey, 12,000 spectators; Maly Ice Palace - ice hockey, 7,000 spectators; Sochi Olympic Oval - speed skating, 8,000 spectators; Sochi Olympic Skating Centre - figure skating, short track speed skating, 12,000 spectators; Sochi Olympic Curling Centre - curling, 3,000 spectators; Sochi Olympic Stadium - 69,000 spectators; Main Olympic village; International broadcasting centre and main press-room. After the Olympics, it is planned to use the cluster area as part of Formula One street circuit. This deal was signed on 14 October 2010 though it could be delayed to the 2014 Games. The contract runs to 2020. 

According to the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee, Sochi 2014 will be the most compact Winter Games in the history of the Olympic Movement. It will be possible to get from one venue to another in just a matter of minutes and all Olympic and Paralympic competition will take place in the same venues. It is for this reason that all athletic facilities for the Sochi 2014 Games are being built with the needs of disabled people in mind. Eleven athletic venues will be built for the Sochi 2014 Games, which will be divided into two clusters-mountain and coastal. The clusters will be located within 48km of each other, which is less than a 30-minute ride along a new railway. Each cluster will contain an Olympic Village. The travel time from the Olympic Village to a competition venue in the coastal cluster will be no more than five minutes. Additionally, travel time from the Olympic Village to a competition venue in the mountain cluster is less than 15 minutes. 

Coastal Cluster - the central focus of the coastal cluster will be the Olympic Park. It will connect up all competition venues, the parking zone and the infrastructure elements. For the first time in the history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, all ice arenas will be within walking distance of one other.