Sochi 2014

Setting the stage for Sochi

Canada’s elite winter athletes will be riding a wave of momentum into the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi following the unprecedented 26-medal performance four years earlier on home soil in Vancouver. The 2014 Team is poised for even greater success thanks to the combination of returning medallists, rising stars and the addition of several new events in which Canadian athletes have proven internationally strong.

The Games officially begin on Feb. 7, 2014.

It was on July 4, 2007 that Sochi beat PyeongChang, South Korea by four votes for the right to host the XXII Olympic Winter Games, marking the first time Russia will host after previously hosting the Games of the XXII Olympiad in Moscow in 1980.

Located approximately 1600km south of Moscow, the greater Sochi area has a population of around 400,000 and lies on the northeast coast of the Black Sea, near the border with Georgia.  Sochi is designated as having a humid subtropical climate and therefore has mild winters, with temperatures in February averaging a high of about 10 degrees Celsius and a low of about 3 degrees Celsius at the lower elevations.

Sochi 2014 is being hailed as the most compact Winter Games in the history of the Olympic Movement.