One year before they kick off, the Sochi Winter Olympics have already bagged a world record. They will go down as the most expensive games in history.The cost will top 1.5 trillion rubles ($50 billion) in state and private investment, and three-quarters of that sum has already been spent, as shown in figures released Friday by the governmental commission overseeing preparations for the games.
Since preparations began in 2008, organizers have spent 1.14 trillion rubles on sports and road infrastructure and other measures, according to documents released ahead of the first meeting of the commission chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, Prime reported.
The $50 billion price tag is more than 25 times higher than that of the last winter games, in Vancouver, Canada. The 2010 Olympics cost an estimated $1.8 billion, or $2.5 billion if calculated on the basis of generated real gross domestic product, a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows.
Sochi also overtakes the Beijing Summer Games of 2008, which cost $40 billion and have been rated the most expensive Olympics so far.
The cost of the Sochi games is higher than that of all previous winter Olympics combined, opposition politician Boris Nemtsov said in an interview with online television platform Politvestnik posted Friday. It was not clear whether his estimates were in real or nominal terms.
Read more: Sochi Olympics Most Expensive in History | News | The Moscow Times
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