"By August 5, we have to draw a detailed action plan for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, and we will receive the IOC's Coordination Committee as early as August 27-29," Dmitry Chernyshenko said, adding that it was so far unclear who would head the visiting committee.
Russia's Black Sea resort city, along with the national Olympic committee, must set up an organizing committee to oversee preparations for the Olympics, as well as and the Games themselves, and to report progress to the IOC, Chernyshenko said. Under the Olympic Charter, the committee has to be established within five months after a contract with a winner is signed.
"But we have no time to waste, we have to start preparing for the Winter Games right now. The bidding committee will replace the organizing committee until formalities [to set up the latter] have been completed," Chernyshenko said.
Sochi's Olympic facilities so far exist only on paper, and the resort city has to translate a lot of ambitious projects into reality. Authorities in the southern Russian region said last week they expected investment in infrastructure to exceed 500 billion rubles ($20 billion).
Chernyshenko said the Sochi Olympics' mascot would be determined via a nation-wide contest.
"We all remember the role of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games' Misha bear mascot," he said. "I believe we should consult all the citizens of our country. There will be a contest, an open tender through which we will probably select a mascot."
Sochi, which had made two previous bids to hold the Winter Olympics in 1998 and 2002, received a slight four-vote majority over South Korea's Pyeongchang, while Austria's Salzburg, which has a developed Olympic infrastructure, was eliminated in the first round.
