Several of Sochi’s ambassadors expressed their fondness for Mishka the Bear, mascot of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. (Getty Images)
Snowboarding Sheep, Wish-Granting Fish Among Sochi Mascot Ideas
NHL star Alexander Ovechkin, supermodel Natalia Vodyanova and Paralympic champion Olesya Vladykina are among the first to announce entries in the Sochi 2014 mascot competition.The race kicked off Wednesday to design the Winter Games mascot, the first ever to be chosen by popular vote. All of Russia is invited to submit ideas ahead of the Dec. 5 deadline. Sochi’s ambassadors are already doing their part. Ovechkin wants a humorous design and says his entry will be a happy sheep on a snowboard or holding a hockey stick.“I hope the white tiger – a threatened species in need of our support – will become the Sochi 2014 mascot,” Vodyanova said in a statement. Olympic medalists Oksana Domnina, Maksim Shabalin and Albert Demchenko weighed in with their thoughts as well.
Shabalin, a world champion ice dancer, insisted the mascot be a kind and gentle animal. Domnina, Shabalin’s partner on the ice, and luge veteran Demchenko were a bit more specific. She wants a figure-skating dolphin, and he hopes for a magic fish that brings medals to the Russian Olympic team.A nationwide text message and telephone vote on Feb. 7, exactly three years before the Winter Games open, will determine Mishka’s successor.Sochi’s Olympic and Paralympic mascots will be revealed in a live broadcast that same day.Sochi Olympic Developer
Accused of CorruptionThe chief of a company charged with multiple construction projects for the Sochi Olympics was sacked over allegations of corruption.
Ivan Kuznetsov, CEO of Transstroi, was sacked by the company’s parent company Basic Element, which claims he took money from shareholders. There is no evidence that these allegations are tied to the company’s Olympic work.
"Funds misappropriated from shareholders amount to hundreds of millions of rubles," the holding said in a statement.One hundred million rubles is equal to $3.2 million. Basic Element passed on all the information of his activities to the police and did not offer any further information about the affair.
Kuznetsov was CEO of Transstroi since March of 2009. A Basic Element executive told the AFP news agency the company would attempt to recover the funds. Aleksei Barantsev was appointed as the new CEO of Transstroi.
Ivan Kuznetsov, CEO of Transstroi, was sacked by the company’s parent company Basic Element, which claims he took money from shareholders. There is no evidence that these allegations are tied to the company’s Olympic work.
"Funds misappropriated from shareholders amount to hundreds of millions of rubles," the holding said in a statement.One hundred million rubles is equal to $3.2 million. Basic Element passed on all the information of his activities to the police and did not offer any further information about the affair.
Kuznetsov was CEO of Transstroi since March of 2009. A Basic Element executive told the AFP news agency the company would attempt to recover the funds. Aleksei Barantsev was appointed as the new CEO of Transstroi. Ivan Kuznetsov, CEO of Transstroi, was sacked by the company’s parent company Basic Element, which
The sailing qualifying process for the London Olympics was announced. (Getty Images) Transstroi is in charge of several Olympic construction projects with Sochi’s port and a road bypass. The contracts are worth billions of dollars. Sailing Federation Outlines Olympic Qualifying
The road to London 2012’s sailing competition is clear.The International Sailing Federation published Monday an IOC-approved qualification system that will send 380 athletes to Weymouth and Portland for the Summer Olympics.Men will race six events – windsurfer, one-person dinghy, one-person dinghy (heavyweight), two-person dinghy, skiff and keelboat – and women will do four – windsurfer, one-person dinghy, two-person dinghy and match racing.A maximum of 16 sailors per national Olympic committee can qualify for the Games. Each country can have only one boat per event.
Three-fourths of each event’s field will be filled by the top-ranked NOCs at next year’s world championships in Perth, Australia.
The remaining fourth will come from 2012’s world championship or another ISAF-sanctioned event.
Gene Doping Test Breakthroughs
Researchers claim they have a test that shows “conclusive proof” of gene doping. According to a statement from the World Anti Doping Agency, the group funding the research, German researchers developed a test that can find evidence of gene doping in blood samples, and a joint research team from France and the United States can find evidence of gene doping in muscles. The German test can find evidence of doping as far long as 56 days after the doping took place. WADA general director David Howman told the Associated Press: "This is a really significant and major breakthrough. This is a project we've been engaged in since 2002. Now we've reached the situation where we're pretty certain that it can be detected."It's not through markers, it's through actual detection," Howman said. "There's a significant difference there. Using the marker method is more a probability approach, whereas the method these researchers have come up with is stone cold dead, 100 percent."
The tests need scientific verification and could be in use by the London Olympics. WADA defines gene doping as "the non-therapeutic use of cells, genes, genetic elements, or of the modulation of gene expression, having the capacity to improve athletic performance".
Previously, it was believed that gene doping would be impossible to detect. The body’s natural genetic material was thought to be indistinguishable from any introduced genetic material. Written by Matthew Grayson.
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