(Image: Sochi.ru)

Eighty-eight nations from around the world will be meeting at the Sochi Winter Olympics this evening in the event’s 22nd outing.

The Opening Ceremony will begin at 8:14pm local time, chosen because of the 24-hour format 20:14 which resembles the year 2014. This will be 3:14am Saturday in Melbourne and Sydney (which are currently seven hours ahead of Sochi), 9:14pm Friday in Lahore just one hour ahead, and 9:44pm in Chennai, ninety minutes ahead.

Unlike in previous games, the design and lighting method of the Olympic Cauldron has not been kept a secret, however there is still no word on who will be the final torchbearer.

Australian snowboarder Torah Bright (Image: AOC)

Australia‘s 2014 Winter Olympic team will comprise 60 athletes, with high hopes riding on aerials champion Lydia Lassila, snowboarder Torah Bright, snowboarder Alex “Chumpy” Pullin and freestyle skier Dale Begg-Smith. The team also includes Australia’s first athlete to cross over from summer to winter competition, with sprinter and hurdler Jana Pittman competing as part of the bobsled team.

Pakistani skier Muhammad Karim (Image: AlJazeera)

Pakistan will send just one athlete, slalom alpine skier Muhammad Karim, in what is Pakistan’s second ever winter Olympic excursion (the first was in Vancouver in 2010).

Indian luger Shiva Keshavan (Image: Rediff.com)

Indian athletes will compete independently under the  Olympic flag due to the Indian Olympic Association’s ongoing suspension by the International Olympic Committee. The team comprises skiers Himanshu Thakur and Nadeem Iqbal, along with luger Shiva Keshavan, according to a report by The Times of India.

Sochi is in one of Russia’s southernmost regions (Image: Freeskier and Google)

Where is Sochi?

Pronounced “sot-chee” (not “soh-chee” as is commonly mispronounced), Sochi is a city of around 343,000 people on the Black Sea coast, known in Russia as a summer holiday spot. Being humid and subtropical, Sochi was an unusual choice for the Winter Olympics, although the nearby mountains do see regular snow in the winter. Out on the edge of the Russian Federation, Sochi is a two hour flight from Moscow, but just one hour from the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

Sochi’s Coastal Cluster (Image: Moski)

Olympic competition will take place in two areas, a “mountain cluster” featuring skiing, ski jump, bobsled and luge events, and a “coastal cluster” hosting speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey and curling, along with the opening and closing ceremonies, and the Olympic Village. The coastal cluster is in the satellite town of Adler 30 kilometres south of Sochi, near Sochi’s International Airport. Interestingly the Olympic Park is just four kilometres from the international border with Georgia. The mountain cluster is the ski resort town of Krasnaya Polyana, 60 kilometres east of Sochi.

Chairlifts at Krasnaya Polyana, Sochi’s Olympic “Mountain Cluster” (Image: The Times)

Increasing Criticism

The hosting rights for the 2014 Winter Olympics were awarded to the Sochi in July 2007, but preparations for the Olympics have come under increasing criticism on several fronts.

Four kilometres from the coastal cluster of venues and the Olympic Village is the international border with Georgia, two regions of which were invaded by Russia on the eve of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. While the war officially ended within a week, the diplomatic crisis persisted and tensions are still high.

Armed guards patrol the Sochi Olympics (Image: Knox News)

Additionally, Sochi is around 700 kilometres from the restive region of Chechnya, having been locked in a separatist battle with Russian forces for most of the past two decades. Resistance to Russian rule in Chechnya is wide enough that the region has been linked to several high-profile terrorist attacks in Russia, including the 2002 Moscow theatre siege and the 2004 Beslan school massacre. Russian president Vladmir Putin has promised a “ring of steel” to secure the games in an effort to allay fears of a terrorist attack.

Furthermore, Russian authorities have been asked to clampdown on any dissent in the Olympic city during the games, with protests against Russia’s laws regarding homosexuality expected. Demonstrations have been banned, although more recent reports suggest this policy may have been relaxed. Stray dogs have also been reported to have been slaughtered in what appears to be an attempt to “clean up” Sochi’s streetscape.

The Iceberg Skating Palace will host speed skating events (Image: BBC)

Several reports have emerged suggesting that the planning for the Olympic Games has been rife with corruption, while like many Olympic cities the cost of hosting the games has skyrocketed. The typical concerns about ill-preparedness also emerged on the eve of the games.

The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games will run for a total of seventeen days, with the closing ceremony on the evening of the 23rd February.

The Sochi Olympic Park Coastal Cluster (Image: Sports Illustrated)

Melbourne and Sydney television viewers can watch the Olympic Games on Network Ten; coverage begins at 10:50pm tonight and continues through to the morning. Opening ceremony highlights will then be shown from 7pm on Saturday night, while live competition will begin on One HD at 4:25 ADST.

Lahore and Chennai television viewers can watch the Olympic Games on Star Sports HD 2; coverage of the Opening Ceremony begins at 9pm PKT and 9:30pm IST.