Research Question 2:

What environmental impacts were evident in hosting or preparing for this event?
Source 2: http://time.com/2828/sochi-winter-olympics-environmental-damage/
As part of its bid, Russia told IOC members it would be staging a "zero waste" Games that followed green
building standards. This was a huge challenge: organizers had to build infrastructure to host 88 other
competing countries, the world's media and hundreds of thousands of spectators in an underdeveloped region
that was home to a UNESCO World Heritage site and a national park. Sochi organizers pushed ahead with their
green theme, working with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to review construction progress,
issuing interim sustainability reports measuring their environmental impact and devising an environmental
strategy that promised to deliver the Games "in harmony with nature." Instead, Sochi organizers have failed on
all their green promises, says Suren Gazaryan, a zoologist and member of the environmental campaign group
Environmental Watch of the North Caucasus (EWNC0 "The most dangerous and important part of the damage
is the biodiversity lost in the area," says Gazaryan. Simon Lewis, who runs Team Planet, a U.K.-based
consultancy on sustainability in sport, says Sochi organizers already had their work cut out for them. Some IOC
members have admitted as much. Lewis explains that the IOC has pushed hard to make the environment a key
pillar of the Olympics movement, tracing its efforts back to the early 1990s and lauding its environmental
achievements with the Sydney Summer Olympics in 2000. Gazaryan is cynical about whether the unresolved
environmental concerns will receive much attention once the spectacle of Games gets underway next week,
but like Lewis, he believes that the IOC needs to reconsider how it ensures sustainability standards are met in
future. Given Russias hopes of making Sochi a global ski destination after the Gameswhich would open up a
sensitive national park region to increased tourist trafficit seems unlikely that its environmental legacy is one
the IOC will be shouting too loudly about in the years to come.

Source 3: http://theconversation.com/sochi-olympics-have-left-a-trail-of-environmental-destruction-
23112
The reports from Sochis newly built hotels and Olympic Village have not painted their construction in the best
light, with tales of doors that wouldnt open, yellow drinking water, and collapsing fixtures and fittings.
Unfortunately, the situation doesnt look any better on the environmental front. It is also a poor decision from
a tourism perspective. When the planning for the games began, it was illegal to organise large scale sporting
events within the national park. Following a similar comically grotesque trend, the Sochi games organisers
failed to carry out a survey for their construction sites. The most environmentally damaging construction was
the joint highway-railway route from the Adler district of Sochi by the coast to Krasnaya Polyana in the
mountains. More than 3,000 hectares of rare forests were logged for their large numbers of Taxus (yew) and
Buxus (box) trees, and many sites where red deer and wild boar overwintered were uprooted and destroyed.
Relative to previous Olympic venues, the games in Sochi were all but guaranteed to inflict greater
environmental damage simply because there is so much more environment to damage compared to those
events in or around major cities. In fact, far from supporting environmental protection, Sochi 2014 seems to be
actively prosecuting those who speak out in its defence. The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) played a
very positive role in the course of preparation for the games, carrying out regular assessments and reporting
back to the Russian government. In contrast, the International Olympic Committee has never seriously looked
into any concerns raised by environmentalists, providing tacit backing to the organisers rampage through the
delicate and diverse ecology of the Caucasus. In Sochi, the IOC has demonstrated that the only things that
matter are image and money.