A ceremony to celebrate a year to go until the 2014 Olympic Games was held in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi on Thursday.
A ceremony to celebrate a year to go until the 2014 Olympic Games was held in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi on Thursday.
"We invite to Sochi everyone who likes sports and honest and uncompromising struggle," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the ceremony.
"In 2007, the IOC supported the Olympic dream of millions of Russians. We, in turn, will make every effort to justify this trust," Putin told IOC President Jacques Rogge, who is currently touring the Olympic venues in Sochi.
The one-year countdown was marked with a dazzling ice show at the Bolshoi Ice Dome.
The show featured 300 artists including Olympic champion figure skatersTatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov.
The show illustrated Sochi's transformation since the city was awarded the Games in 2007.
Sochi will host the Games between February 7 and 23 next year, with the Paralympics scheduled for March 7-16.
The Games will be the biggest-ever Winter Olympics, with around 6,000 athletes and team members, and the most expensive Olympics of any kind in history at $50 billion
A fireworks demonstration rounded off the celebrations.
Apart from the ceremony, the Olympic clocks began their countdown in Moscow and seven other cities across Russia.
