Tony Dallas

Published: 6 February 2014

IF I asked you where Sochi was, would you know?

Yet at a reputed cost of $51billion, Russia’s Winter Olympic Games are the most expensive on record.

President Vladimir Putin wanted to sell these games as part of the ‘new Russia’. But with security concerns, accusations of corruption and an anti-gay bill, signed by Putin in June which makes the country inhospitable to LGBT people, the expensive PR ploy hasn’t worked.

So, what is this sporting event that has cost more than all the other winter games put together?

Well, the games are made up of 15 events – and I wouldn’t have been able to name three without mentioning the words skating, skiing or bob-sleighing.

And what’s a luge?

Like most people who have never skied and whose only experience of tobogganing was on a milk crate down a snowy Kite Hill, I found Olympics in winter boring.

My earliest recollection of any Winter Olympics was Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards. He jumped so much shorter than everyone else that I thought him more a dying swan than a soaring eagle and resented the fact that he’d been made a celebrity for his failure.

But looking closer, I now realise how much sacrifice is made when you’re born in a country that hasn’t got the proper facilities or weather for such extreme sports.

Eddie Edwards begged and borrowed his way around Europe in order to qualify for the 1988 Olympics.

In the early years he suffered for his sport, his helmet was held on by string and, apparently, he wore six pairs of socks so his second-hand ski boots would fit. He baby sat, cut grass and worked in hotels – all to fulfil a dream and, no matter how he looked in the air, I respect that.

Our greatest hope for a medal this time around is 2014 World Cup Champion Lizzy Yarnold, in the bob skeleton. This is where athletes hurtle down a track head first at speeds of up to 80mph!

However, let’s not hold our breath because out of the 140 athletes that GB have sent to the three Winter Olympics held since the millennium’, we’ve managed only four trips to the podium. Although I think it crudely expensive, let’s hope that Lizzy and all the other British athletes who have made sacrifices along the way can change that.

And just so you know, a luge is a light sled for one or two people, ridden in a sitting or supine position.

TONY DALLAS

• What do you think about Putin’s  Winter Olympics in Sochi ? Have your say at sports@camdennewjournal.com