Olympic champions, high-powered officials and financiers of the 2014 Winter Games have inaugurated the All-Russia Sports Journalists Forum in Sochi, which is designed to highlight the fundamental principles and techniques of competition coverage.
The four-day forum, opened by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov and organized by RIA Novosti and its sports arm R-Sport, introduced more than 170 media representatives to the news agency's operations, also featuring seminars on industry technology and coverage methods.
"It's precisely through your reports and publications that the people of our country and others will keep abreast how the most important competition in the world is going, about our athletes and their achievements," said Zhukov, the head of Russia's Olympic Committee, in opening remarks.
"Your evaluation of these events will linger in the memory for years to come."
After presentations by RIA Novosti deputy editor-in-chief Maxim Filimonov and and R-Sport editor-in-chief Vasily Konov explaining the agency's role as an industry trailblazer, participants posed questions on its workings, its editorial policy and coverage plans for a packed summer of sports.
R-Sport is Russia's only dedicated sports wire, with 50 correspondents across the country producing upwards of 130 stories per day. Over a dozen sports are covered in depth on multiple platforms including text, photos, video and infographics.
The agency's English-language service comes into full operation in mid-May with the launch of a fully fledged website and wire.
The expansion of R-Sport became critical after RIA Novosti was awarded host agency status for the Sochi Games by the International Olympic Committee in November.
The forum's participants were also brought up to speed with preparations for the Games.
Vladimir Potanin, the CEO of the Interros holding company that is building the Rosa Khutor ski resort, insisted that the construction of the Olympic village was on schedule, despite reports of problems with financing.
Business daily Kommersant reported this week that Vnesheconombank, the project's co-financier, was holding up payments.
"We have just received the latest tranche. ... Everything that we are doing will be done on time and done well," Potanin said.
As well as the ski resort, freestyle center and Olympic village, Interros is also constructing an Olympic University next to the coastal cluster of facilities to the east of Sochi, which Potanin said would be the first in the world to offer a Master of Sports Administration (MSA) degree.
Potanin admitted top courses at the university, which is set to open its doors to students for the 2013-2014 academic year, would be expensive.
"That's the price for prestige," he said, adding that more basic courses would run cheaper.
Potanin's role in securing the Olympics for Russia dates back to a 2003 ski trip to Austria he took with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the billionaire said.
"We looked at each other and thought 'why can't we have a resort like this?'"
Sochi Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, meanwhile, eulogized the Games as a catalyst for transforming the dilapidated Soviet-era town into a modern coastal resort.
Dozens of new highways, some of which are finished, will alleviate the city of its choking traffic jams, while new and refurbished residences will give it a presentable, European-style appearance, Pakhomov said.
He rued the city's lack of professional hockey and football teams, however, but insisted it was only a matter of time before the necessary funding is found.
"Of course, I'd love to see a hockey team here," he said. "We hope that we'll have a good hockey team before the Olympics."
Later at the forum, double Olympic champion Olga Zaitseva defended Russia's biathletes, who brought home just two bronze medals from the March world championships in Germany in what was labeled the country's worst-ever performance.
In his opening speech on Tuesday, Filimonov called on the forum's guests "not to be shy and share your thoughts, ideas and concerns" during the week.
They obliged, turning the master classes and seminars held on the sidelines of the forum into lively discussions.
In a writing class, RIA Novosti's top staff training officer Oleg Shchedrov, a former Kremlin correspondent for Reuters, dismantled a typical article to explain western news formats to journalists from Russia's regions.
Taking examples from the British royal wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, and also from a dramatic courtroom battle between Russian businessmen Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky, the agency's senior London correspondent Alexander Smotrov demonstrated the effectiveness of the Twitter social network platform to attract new readers.
Daria Penchilova, who oversees RIA Novosti's social network presence, gave tips on how to maximize the effectiveness of all platforms, as well as explaining etiquette and interacting with other network users.
Konov, formerly a leading sports anchor and commentator for Russia's top television network Channel One, praised the forum primarily for being a tool to assist media outlets that do not have the means to provide the level of coverage they would like.
"The forum is a very important and useful event to meet some real professionals of the industry, and also to help some of our colleagues who don't have the financial means to get to competition venues or to the athletes," he said.
The forum ended Friday.
