All host countries use the Olympics to improve their standing but, with the Sochi games just three months away, Russian President Vladimir Putin is also taking the opportunity to cement his own position in the world’s largest country. When the Olympic flame first arrived in Moscow, he was at the centre of an elaborate ceremony on Red Square. With rousing music playing, he strode out of the Kremlin gates on live television and marched up a long red carpet to receive the flame personally. He then stood there, torch in hand as the national anthem played. Another torch has now been sent up to the International Space Station for a spacewalk on Saturday, to remind the world of Russia’s leading role in manned space flight. An icebreaker has even smashed its way to the North Pole with one of the torches, emphasising Russia’s strength in the Arctic. “Russia is a very special country,” Dmitry Chernyshenko, the president of the Sochi Organising Committee told me. “There are few countries capable of sending an icebreaker to the North Pole. Also we are sending the Olympic torch into outer space and that particular device will be the torch that lights the Olympic flame in the cauldron at the opening ceremony on 7 February 2014.”
Share this post