Q: What's new in Sochi?
Bodesteiner: When I went there two years ago, it was a really small little mountain town up a pretty narrow mountain valley. I swear there must have been about 800 people living there with old houses and without any kind of resort at all up there. Now, going back, you can see it's going to be a huge transformation. There's tons of construction going on right now everywhere you go with thousands of workers and trucks. They're building a world class ski resort which is going to have great skiing. The mountains are all being connected by peak to peak gondolas on two sides of the valley. Down along the river they're doing great development of about two dozen high-end hotels. That's going to basically be the heartbeat of the Olympics because along the river corridor are the mountain venues up at the top of the ski area, then the resort village and down at the bottom of the river valley in Sochi are the ice arenas. They're actually at the end of Sochi, about an hour from downtown in normal traffic. So really I think the action is going to be up in skiing and snowboarding venue at Rosa Khutor.
Taking a First Look at Sochi
First Tracks!!
July 17, 2010
