Dmitry Medvedev to chair meeting of the Council for Sport

SOCHI. March 23. KAZINFORM Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will on Monday chair a meeting of the Council for Physical Culture and Sport. It will be held in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi that will host the Winter Olympic Games in 2014.

The subject will be preparations for the games. ?Generally speaking, all the tasks on implementing the Olympic project in 2008 were completed, 2009 has begun strictly according to schedule,? a report prepared by the Russian Ministry of Regional Development said. Its former head, Vice-Premier Dmitry Kozak, is responsible for the preparation of the 2014 Games in the Russian government. More and more sport facilities are entering a construction stage. An energy supply system and a security system will soon be designed. According to the latest estimates presented by Kozak, the cost of building the Olympic facilities in Sochi has gone down by 15% compared to the initial estimate and will account for 218 billion roubles. Expenses for the construction of four ice palaces in Sochi have been reduced by 7.5 billion roubles compared to the preliminary estimate. ?The contractors are constantly trying to swell the budget,? Kozak said, adding the costs would be controlled. The Russian Ministry of Regional Development forecasts that people of various professions will be needed at Olympic construction sites. More than 57,000 builders will work at the facilities of the state corporation ?Olympstroi?. That is why the corporation is considering the possibility of attracting student workers to the construction sites in summer time. More than 100,000 jobs will be created in Russia, as part of the anti-crisis package, to produce machinery and building materials for the Olympic project. The Organizing Committee of the 2014 Olympic games and the administration of Sochi are planning to attract up to 25,000 and 50,000 volunteers, respectively, to help holding the Games in 2014. The Russian government is working on an ?Olympic Heritage? program for Sochi. After the Games the city will have a developed infrastructure. Favourable living conditions will be created for all city residents, including disabled people with limited physical abilities. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that more than 80 percent of all the resources under the Olympic project would be spent to finance the construction of roads and railways in Sochi, to solve its ecological problems as well as on energy supply and communications. The Council for Physical Culture and Sport will consider preparations for another vital event in the sports calendar ? the 17th World Student Games to be held in Kazan, the Republic of Tatarstan, in the summer of 2013. The Russian Ministry for Sport, Tourism and Youth Policy consider the World Student Games to be the most important and representative international sport event after the Olympics. ?The fact that the World Student Games will be held in the Republic of Tatarstan is a sign of international recognition of our country?s credits in developing sport among students and of Russia?s contribution to the international sport movement. This is also a powerful stimulus for developing student sport and improving the system of physical training in the country?s higher educational establishments,? the Russian Ministry for Sport, Tourism and Youth Policy says. Many facilities that have already been built and will be built for the student games will afterwards be used for educational, sport and social purposes. The Summer World Student Games will last for no longer than ten days. Competitions in 25 sports will be held. Young men and women will compete for 263 sets of medals. The Council for Physical Culture and Sport was set up under the Russian president in 2002. In 2007, when Russia won the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, the body was transformed into the Council for developing physical culture and sport and preparations for the 22nd Winter Olympic Games and the 11th Winter Paralympic Games in Sochi in 2014. The Council?s main task is to organize the games. It also works out proposals on priorities in the development of physical culture and sport, including the propaganda of a healthy way of life, state support for the sport of high achievements and the training of Russian athletes for Olympic and Paralympic Games. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is the Council?s chairman while Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is the president of the presidium of the Council for Physical Culture and Sport. President Medvedev arrived in Sochi two days ago. He visited a sport facility at the Krasnaya Polyana mountain skiing resort where he met Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The meeting was not confined to political discussions. Both leaders had fun going downhill on one of the slopes, Kazinform cites ITAR-TASS.