Cold Sport

Russia vs Canada is one of the key clashes of any Winter Olympics.

But the modern-day battle on the ice will have new edge in Sochi when the Russian Olympic team is due to be prepared with help from Canadian company Allinger Consulting.

The $5 million contract, which runs until 2016, aims to bring 14 gold medals to the 2014 host nation – putting them firmly on top of the table.

Foreign experts guarantee medals

The deal with Allinger will be valid until 2016, but its primary aim will be to maximise medals potential at the home Olympics, according to Olympics committee vice-president Akhmed Bilalov.

The price is comparable to what Canada paid for a similar deal for last year’s Vancouver’s Olympics.

Then Allinger created a successful strategy that helped the hosts win 14 gold medals and take first place in unofficial medal charts. Along the way the Maple Leafs’ hockey team handed Russia a painful 7-3 thumping in the quarter finals, pictured above as Jonathan Toews scores one of the Canadian goals.

And the winter sport success has continued, with Canadian figure skater Patrick Chan smashing Yevgeny Plushchenko’s world record to take gold at the World Championships in Moscow this week.

The deal states that Russia’s result in Sochi has to be no worse than 14 gold medals. But that could be a tall order, since last time in Vancouver Russia managed just 15 medals in total, one of the country’s worst ever results.

Scientific approach to success

Allinger will create a step by step plan of preparing the national team, and a pool of possible medal-winners.

They will take care of individual training schedule, monitor and correct training schedules, and rotate failing athletes. Allinger will discuss the training process with heads of sport federations.

The company will make a quarterly report on the latest innovation and achievements in sports science and medicine, form groups of specialists for choosing gear and a “group for aiding success” – medics, diet specialists, biomechanics.

The money to pay for Allinger’s services will come from Gazprom, said Bilalov. But the state-owned firm’s hand-outs, which also bankroll St. Petersburg’s Zenit FC and SKA hockey team as well as the KHL, could be reduced in future as there are concerns that state backing discourages sports federations from careful use of their budgets.

Disappointing Vancouver result discussed

Russia took disappointing a 11^th place in Vancouver Olympics, and after the end of this winter season Russia fell two ranking places to 13^th.

The problem of poor results is being addressed by the government, as vice-premier and Russia’s Olympics Committee president Alexander Zhukov called for a meeting to discuss the issue, sources in the ROC told Vedomosti.

Zhukov harshly criticised the work of a list of federations and ministry of sport. Allinger’s representatives were also present at that meeting and were introduced to the heads of federations.

It is the first large-scale contract of this kind with a foreign company, said former ROC press-secretary Gennady Shvets. Before only individual coaches and athletes were invited. The price is not too high for the contract, but 14 gold medals is too ambitious, he said. But it will help Russian managers work better, anyway.

Sochi preparations 70% done

In the meantime, 70 per cent of the preparation for Sochi has been completed, vice-premier Dmitry Kozak announced.

“The programme of physical work is just over 40 per cent finished, and considering the preparation works, or works to do with projecting, picking land plots, attaching certain objects to land – then it is about 70 per cent of the way,” he told RIA Novosti.

But building stadiums is only part of the battle. International finance house PriceWaterhouse?oopers argues that infrastructure in no less important, and in Sochi is it “practically non-existent,” Vedomosti reported.