Sochi Winter Olympics Trivia

Here are some Winter Olympics trivia about the 2014 Sochi Games. See also trivia about previous Winter Olympics.

Sochi stadium and flame

This was Russia's first time hosting the Winter Olympic Games (and the first time they had bid for it), though they have previously hosted the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow (when it was part of the Soviet Union).
The primary venue for outdoor sports was the resort in Krasnaya Polyana district, which was designed by the same company working on ski slopes for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
A team event was added to the figure skating program for 2014, requiring the competition to start a day before the Opening ceremony. This will was first time in the history of the Winter Olympics that competitions were held before the Opening ceremony.
The Sochi 2014 Olympic Torch was the first to travel in space - one leg of the relay involved a spacewalk by Russian cosmonauts.

In 2014, two gold medals, to Dominique Gisin of Switzerland and Tina Maze of Slovenia, were awarded for a first-place tie in the Women's downhill event in alpine skiing, the first gold medal tie ever for an Olympic alpine skiing event. No silver medal was awarded.
Winning gold can be lucrative: in 2014, any Kazakhstani athlete who claims gold will earn a cool US$250,000 for their efforts. Latvia is offering its athletes US$192,000 for a gold medal, with Ukranian gold medalists up for US$150,000.

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