Sochi 2014 Curling Arena Faces Delays

WINTERBERG, Germany, December 7 (R-Sport) - A test event for the Sochi 2014 Olympic curling center has been moved to a different city because of technical delays with the arena, a curling official told R-Sport on Friday.

The Cup of Russia was to take place at the end of the month at the Ice Cube curling center on the Black Sea coast.

But the event is to be moved to Moscow or the town of Dmitrov to give technicians more time to prepare the building for bigger competitions in February, said Dmitry Svishchev, the president of the Russian Curling Federation.

"There's no need to panic," Svishchev said. "The arena in Sochi is technically ready. All that is left to do is a technical examination."

 

"The Cup of Russia is not the most important competition, and for us the main thing now is to prepare for the wheelchair curling world championships and the junior world championships."
He insisted the facility would be "the best curling arena in the world."

"I didn't imagine that a curling venue could be so fantastically well-equipped with first-class facilities."

 

The wheelchair curling world championships start February 14, and the junior world championships on February 26.

The figure skating Grand Prix Finals, the first international test event for the coastal cluster of facilities, start later Friday the adjacent Iceberg arena.

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Dmitry Svishchev