- Date:
- February 7, 2014 - February 23, 2014
Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
What was significant about the location of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics?
How much did Russia reportedly spend on the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics?
Who was the most-decorated athlete of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics?
Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, athletic festival held in Sochi, Russia, that took place February 7–23, 2014. The Sochi Games were the 22nd occurrence of the Olympic Winter Games.
Cost and controversy
The Sochi Games marked the first time that the Winter Olympics were held in Russia. The country had previously been home to the Olympics when Moscow hosted the 1980 Summer Games. Sochi was awash in controversy in the months leading up to the Games, as the choice of a city with a temperate climate as a Winter Games site led to concerns about whether there would be adequate snow cover. Moreover, the construction of venues and other buildings ran far behind schedule, and preparations were plagued by allegations of mismanagement, corruption, and sportswashing.
Russia reportedly spent $51 billion on the Games, a total that surpassed any paid by a previous host country. In addition, there were numerous security threats in the buildup to the Games, as well as political unrest in nearby Ukraine, and the June 2013 passage of an anti-homosexuality bill in the Russian parliament raised the possibility of protests derailing the Olympics. A mechanical failure during the opening ceremonies prevented one of the rings in a light display of the Olympic logo from deploying, which was seen as foreboding by many media members, but the Sochi Olympics nevertheless progressed as smoothly as any other contemporary Winter Games.
Competition, results, and notable athletes
The Sochi Olympics featured approximately 2,800 athletes from 88 national Olympic committees (NOCs), which was a record for the most participating NOCs in the Winter Olympics. The athletes participated in the most events in Winter Games history—98, which included 12 new events, notably women’s ski jumping and slopestyle (a combination of downhill racing and the tricks of freestyle) disciplines of skiing and snowboarding for both men and women.
The most-dominant showing by a single country in one sport at any Winter Games took place in speed skating at Sochi as the Dutch team shattered the Olympic record by winning 23 of the 36 medals that were awarded in the sport. (The previous record holder was the Austrian Alpine skiing team that won 14 medals at the Turin 2006 Olympic Winter Games.) The most-decorated athlete of the 2014 Olympics was Dutch speed skater Ireen Wüst, who tallied five total medals (two golds and three silvers). Her countryman Sven Kramer added to his career Olympic medal count by taking two golds (both in Olympic record time) and one silver. In short-track speed skating, Russia’s Viktor Ahn (who previously competed in the Olympics for South Korea under his given name, Ahn Hyun-Soo) won three gold medals to increase his lifetime Olympic tally to six and establish himself as arguably the greatest short-track speed skater of all time.
The Russian team had a controversial win in women’s figure skating, where unheralded Russian Adelina Sotnikova upset defending Olympic champion Kim Yu-Na of South Korea, despite the latter having skated what many observers thought was a winning program. The Alpine skiing events featured two notable finishes by Americans of disparate ages, as Bode Miller became—at age 36—the oldest Alpine medalist ever when he took the bronze in the supergiant slalom, while Mikaela Shiffrin’s victory in the slalom made the 18-year-old the youngest Olympic slalom champion in history.
- Russia: 29
- United States: 28
- Norway: 26
- Canada: 25
- Netherlands: 24
Note: Medal count per the IOC website.
Norway and Sweden controlled the cross-country events, as the two countries each took 11 medals, with Marit Bjørgen of Norway winning three gold medals to bring her career Olympic gold total to six, tying her with Lidiya Skoblikova and Lyubov Yegorova for most all-time for female Winter Olympians. The overall individual Winter medal record was also set at Sochi, when Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjørndalen captured gold medals in the 10-km sprint and mixed team relay and a bronze in the 4 × 7.5 km relay to bring his career Olympic total to 14 medals. Another biathlete, Darya Domracheva of Belarus, made headlines for winning the first Winter Olympic gold medals for a female athlete in her country’s history and also becoming the first female biathlete to win three golds in a single Olympiad.
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The Canadian men’s and women’s ice hockey teams each captured a gold medal. The country also swept the curling events, with the women’s team becoming the first women’s curling squad to go undefeated through an Olympic competition.
Doping violations
At the immediate conclusion of the Sochi Games, Russia had won the most gold medals (13) and the most overall medals (33). In the following years the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) conducted an investigation into allegations that Russia had concocted a state-sponsored scheme to cover up use of performance-enhancing drugs by its athletes, including at the Sochi Games. In 2019 WADA banned Russia from international competitions for four years as punishment (though the Court of Arbitration in 2020 halved the punishment to two years). As part of this and other investigations, several Russian athletes had their results nullified and their medals stripped from the Sochi Games, which affected Russia’s final medal count. By 2025, Russia held the second most gold medals (tied with Canada at 10) and the most overall medals (29).