officially known as the XXII Olympic Winter Games, is the next Winter Olympics held from February 7 to February 23, 2014 in Sochi, Russia; the city was elected at the IOC session in Guatemala on July 4, 2007. Eleven new sports facilities were constructed in Sochi in preparation for the event. The events are organised within two clusters, a mountain cluster and a coastal cluster located 48 kilometres apart, each of which has its own Olympic Village.
The central facility of the coastal cluster is the Olympic Park, which accommodates the Olympic Stadium, the Bolshoi (large) Ice Palace, the Maly (small) Ice Palace, the Olympic Curling Centre, The Olympic Skating Centre (for figure skating and short track speed skating), and the Olympic Oval for speed skating.
The mountain cluster includes biathlon and skiing facilities, a bobsleigh and luge centre, a set of ski jumping ramps, a snowboarding park and freestyle centre.
Following the Olympic Games, the sports facilities will be used to develop tourism, and Sochi will become a year-round resort city.
For Russia these are the second Olympics (after the XXII Summer Olympic Games held in Moscow in 1980), but the first Winter Olympics.