Where The Heck Is Sochi?

The games here are winding down. It is early Sunday morning now, the Men's Marathon goes this morning, and the Closing Ceremonies are tonight. I will leave work at 10am this morning, go home and pack, try to sleep for a bit, and then come back in to watch the closing ceremonies (I don't have to work overnight into Monday because that is the day I fly home!).

My bags get checked at the Media Village tonight after Closing Ceremonies between 11pm and 3am, then we actually do our airport check-in at the MV, and catch a noon bus to the airport for a 4pm flight. If all goes well, I should touch down in Toronto (via Chicago again) about 6:40pm on Monday (only two hours after I leave Beijing!).

We all need a break, but some people are already looking forward to the next Olympics.

Everyone knows that the next Winter Olympics are in Vancouver in 2010. Can you believe they are only 538 days away!

Most of you are probably aware that the next Summer Olympics are in London in 2012.

You may even have heard that the bidding cities for the Summer Olympics in 2016 are Tokyo, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and... Chicago (guess which one I hope DOESN'T win - PS. it is the same one that I am sure NBC will be fighting tooth and nail for).

Wait a seccond, I skipped right over the Winter Olympics for 2014. Hmmmm, did you know these games had been awarded over a year ago in the summer of 2007?

Neither did I. Apparently, the winning city was Sochi. Huh? Where the heck is that?

Well, it turns out that Sochi is in Russia (for now). Have a look at this map:


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Sochi is located in a southern arm of Russia on the east coast of the Black Sea. Ok, fine. But it is also located only about 30 miles from the country of Georgia (yes, the same Georgia that is having a little mini-war with Russia right now).

Lovely, sounds like a brilliant place to have the Olympics. Sochi might not even be part of Russia in 6 years.

There is already support from some US lawmakers for lobbying the IOC to revoke the games from Sochi, to express displeasure with their recent conflict with Georgia.

On the other hand, there was also quite a buzz in 2001 about revoking the games from Beijing because of China's human rights record. There are still concerns there, but my experience here has been enormously positive.

The people of China have been unfailingly polite, cheerful, and genuinely friendly. I have felt completely comfortable here, and wish I could stay longer.