Russia’s ski and snowboard federation president was pretty impressed with how Sochi put on the Winter Olympics, so much so that she doubts Pyeongchang can match it.
“I believe it is unrealistic to repeat in Korea what happened in Sochi – the infrastructure and everything,” Svetlana Gladysheva said, according to R-Sport. “So the Koreans are a bit upset. Actually, Korea is shocked. Local workers would obviously be trained, but holding the Olympics as Sochi did is unlikely.”
The R-Sport article said Gladysheva was referring to Sochi’s success in hosting the Olympics.
Pyeongchang organizers saw how Sochi handled the Olympics and believe they will be ready in 2018.
“Pyeongchang has been on this bid process for such a long time that they’ve already set up a lot of infrastructure and things like that to prove to the IOC that they are ready to host these Games,” 2006 U.S. Olympic bronze medalist moguls skier Toby Dawson, who has been part of the 2018 team, said last month. “Their mission is to have the best Winter Olympic Games ever to date, so they seem to be very organized and ahead of schedule in comparison to some of these other countries that are hosting the Olympics. They’re right on schedule with all their construction work, seem to have hired on a lot of new faces and people and will be ready well before the Games instead of putting all the pieces together right before the Games start.”
