Russia plans to send the Olympic Flame into space before the opening of the Winter Olympics 2014 in Russia's southern Black Sea resort city of Sochi, Russian Olympic Committee President Alexander Zhukov said on Thursday.

"Russia was the first country 50 years ago to send a man into outer space. Now we have the chance to be the first nation to send the Olympic Flame to outer space and we are proud of that," Zhukov said.

In February 2011, a number of news agencies reported that a Russian space industries company had begun working on a project of sending the flame into space and returning it to Earth. The vice-deputy of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, Vitaly Davydov, said that the idea is theoretically possible, however has not been developed.

In the span of 20 days before the Games, the Olympic Flame will travel across Russia and will be brought to the highest mountain in Europe, Mt. Elbrus, as well as to the bottom of the deepest freshwater lake in the world, Russia's Lake Baikal.