Olympic Updates

The 2014 Sochi Winter Games will head into the record book as being the most expensive Winter Olympics to date. The estimated cost of the event is already being estimated at $12 billion. That's well over twice the cost of the Vancouver Games.

Sochi, unlike Vancouver, lacks venues and infrastructure which is a huge part of the costs as well as a poor world economy over the last few years.

The Russian government has allocated 250 billion roubles ($8.34 billion) from the National Wealth Fund to set up a home loan programme which should support struggling construction sector that was one of the drivers of the Russian economic growth before the crisis.

The Russian government is stepping up to cover a huge portion of the bill for Sochi but some estimates about the deteriorating infrastructure as well as the creation of new venues may put the cost around the $20 billion mark!