More than 50 sports facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia's Black Sea resort city of Sochi will be opened by the end of the year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said on Friday.
"We have started the construction of more than 120 sports facilities, over 50 venues should be put into operation by the end of the year," Kozak said.
More than 200 sports facilities and parts of the infrastructure are to be built in Sochi for the 2014 Winter Games. The cost of building the facilities and infrastructure is estimated at more than $30 billion.
On November 13-14, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center asked 1,600 Russians to choose the best Sochi Olympics mascot from the official website.
The most respondents, 17 percent, voted for the bear cub, Misha, reminiscent of Mishka the Bear, the mascot of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow. Next were a couple of little tigers and a hare - 14 percent voted for each of them.
The southern Russian resort city on the Black Sea won the right to host the Olympics at an IOC session in Guatemala in July 2007 after a close race with South Korea's Pyeongchang and Austria's Salzburg.
Then president Vladimir Putin, a noted sports fan and participant, was the driving force behind Russia's successful bid.
SOCHI, December 10 (RIA Novosti)
