The 2010 Winter Olympics Games in Vancouver have recently finished, which means all eyes are now on the 2014 Winter Olympic host Sochi, Russia. This will only be the second time the Olympics have been held inside Russia's borders, with the first being Moscow, then apart of the Soviet Union, when they held the 1980 Summer Olympic Games.
Sochi compares with Vancouver in many ways in that it narrowly won the Olympic bid. In the first round of voting Sochi was actually second behind PyeongChang, South Korea, with Salzburg, Austria not able to get enough votes to make it out of the round. However, when Sochi went up against PyeongChang for the final voting it came out victorious by a 51-47 vote margin.
Another similarity is that the Sochi Games will be in two clusters, as was the case in Vancouver. The coastal area of Sochi will hold all of the indoor events (ice hockey, speed skating and curling), Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Village, and the international broadcast center and main press room. The mountainous region of Krasnaya Polyana will hold all the outdoor events (all types of skiing, snowboarding, bobsled, luge and skeleton).
Hopefully Sochi can have the same success as Vancouver, have a couple weeks of great competition, and be a means to bring the world together. The world awaits 2014.