With the end of ice hockey championships, Sochi 2014 organizer Dmitry Chernyshenko has declared that the dress rehearsal for the Olympics was a success.
Test events held in the framework of the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games ended with the final game of the International Ice Hockey World Championships in Sochi over the weekend.
Over 3,000 athletes competed in the events, making Sochi one of the top 10 cities in the world in terms of the number of international sporting events, president and CEO of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee Chernyshenko said at a news conference .
"The third season of the pre-Olympic test events of the Winter Games is complete. We are very pleased with the results. The season was not easy, but we can now say with confidence that we are ready for the games even in the most difficult conditions," Chernyshenko said Sunday, Interfax reported.
During the 2012–13 test events, over 70 national and international competitions in all 15 Olympic disciplines and five Paralympic sports were held at the venues where the Olympic athletes will compete next year.
The test events lasted 130 days, almost the same amount of time as the Olympic and Paralympic games.
All functions and services of the Olympic venue were tested by the organizing committee, including the ticket program. The total number of viewers reached 130,000 — surpassing expert forecasts nearly twofold.
The test events are seen as a dry run for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games to be held in Sochi from Feb. 7-23.
With a price tag over $50 billion, the 2014 Sochi Olympics are expected to go down as the most expensive games in history.
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