The scale of ski resort development at Sochi is becoming clear as some of the ski industry's top companies battle to complete construction in time for the Games next winter.
Although there's no known clear central point for information on Sochi's ski areas, an attempt by J2ski.com to piece together what is known has revealed that there are four main Alpine skiing areas around the original resort village of Krasnaya Polyana. Two of these – Rosa Khutor and Laura (also known as Gazprom after its main investor, the state energy company) will host Alpine and Nordic events.
The other two will not host events but the original Krasnaya Polyana ski area, which pre-dates the Olympic bidding process, has seen all new lifts installed, while a fourth area, Karusell, will house the media village.
Although no budget has been announced, it appears that almost all of the 52 lifts will be operational across the four centres, all being well, this autumn as Olympic season begins, at a cost of several hundreds of millions of euros for the lifts alone.
The 50+ lift installations will be the most formidable uplift arsenal ever assembled and include several giant gondolas- including the world's longest at 5.3km and the world's biggest capable of carrying cars as well as people. There will also be nine eight-seater gondolas, among the 20 high speed lifts, and five 'chondolas' combining eight seater gondola cabins and quad chairs on the same cable.
Altogether the ski areas will offer around 200km of piste between them, the biggest lift-served vertical just under 1700m.
What is not yet apparent is whether there is a realistic plan for the use of all these facilities after the Games, so far only Crystal organise ski holidays here from the UK and the four ski areas operate separate lift passes, although some reports say a joint lift pass will be available soon after the Games.
In terms of their physical relationship to one another, three of the areas are due to be lift-linked, more or less, by next season with Rosa Khutor and Laura linked by giant gondolas to a transport hub in the main Alpine resort of Krasnaya, itself linked by rail and road connections to Sochi. The original Krasnaya ski area, now called Alpika, is reported to already be lift-linked to Rosa Khutor. The only area of the four not linked as yet is Karusell, reported to be around 10km from Krasnaya Polyana with no immediate plans for a lift link.