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Olympic security in Sochi, Russia, 2014

The Olympics brings together large crowds and a huge international audience to the world stage — an irresistible opportunity for anyone wanting to make a public statement. Terrorism was first visited on the Olympics at Munich in 1972 and fears it would happen again escalated after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Today, security measures include bomb squads, surveillance cameras, metal detectors and armed guards, to name but a few.

Even in the peaceful country of Canada, the cost of securing the Olympics is staggering, adding up to approximately $1 billion at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. What, then, will security mean in a place where political unrest has been growing? In this report for CBC Radio's Dispatches, reporter Bill Gillespie looks ahead to the 2014 Winter Games in the city of Sochi in Russia's conflict-stricken Caucasus mountains.
• Referring to Georgian/Russian conflict in nearby Abkhazia, unrest in Chechen Republic and Islamic insurgencies in five more nearby Russian provinces, CBC reporter Bill Gillespie says in this clip: "The way things are going, Sochi is looking like an increasingly dubious place to hold an Olympic Games." • On Nov. 27, 2009, just a few months before the broadcast of this report, a high-speed train traveling between Moscow and St. Petersburg was bombed. It derailed, killing 26 people and injuring many more. According to a website sympathetic to the militants, the attack was carried out on behalf of Doku Umarov, a Chechen separatist considered the leader of the Muslim extremist insurgency in the North Caucasus. The ski resort of Krasnaya Polyana, which will house the outdoor sports at the 2014 Games, is nearby in in the Caucasus mountains.

• Sochi, Russia is a resort city on the Black Sea near the border with Georgia. Its population is just under 400,000.

• Although Russia and the Soviet Union have won more medals in the Winter Olympics than any other country, they have never hosted the Winter Games. Russia hosted the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow.

• Sochi beat out Pyeongchang, South Korea, and Salzburg, Austria in their bids for the 2014 Games. Sochi made an unsuccessful bid for the 2002 Winter Games, which were awarded to Salt Lake City.

• Sochi proper will house the indoor sports venues (hockey, speed skating, figure skating and curling), the Olympic stadium and the main athletes' village. Krasnaya Polyana, 60 km from Sochi in the Caucasus mountains, will house the outdoor venues (skiing, sledding, boarding, cross country and biathlon) and a small Olympic village.

Medium: Radio
Program: Dispatches
Broadcast Date: Feb. 11, 2009
Host: Rick MacInnes-Rae
Reporter: Bill Gillespie
Duration: 5:03
Russian flag with map by Osipov Georgy Nokka is used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 generic licence.

Last updated: February 5, 2013

Page consulted on March 28, 2013

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