One year from Sochi: A look at the venues

February, 7, 2013
Feb 7
11:52
AM ET

While Sochi organizers have promised snow will be on the ground despite warn temps in the coastal town (on Thursday, it was 66 degrees there and 59 in the mountains), one thing we can say for sure: The venues for the 2014 Winter Olympics will be there.

Here's a look at some of the locales you'll see next year:

Shayba Arena

The Shayba Arena will host ice hockey games and is in close proximity to other ice skating venues. Capacity: 7,000.

Shayba ArenaAP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev

Fisht Olympic Stadium

The Olympic Stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies, and most medal ceremonies. Capacity: 40,000.

FishtMikhail Mordasov/AFP/Getty Images

'Ice Cube' Curling Center

You guessed it -- curling competitions will be held here. The venue is in the center of the "Coastal Cluster," where all of the ice-based venues are located. Capacity: 3,000.

Ice cube curling center AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev

Bolshoy Ice Dome

The ice hockey venue is said to be modeled after a "frozen water drop," but spectators may think it resembles a disco dance floor when they see the roof light up in multiple colors at night. Capacity: 12,000.

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Years of perseverance by the core athletes on the U.S. Nordic Combined team paid off at the 2010 Vancouver Games as they ended their podium drought with a spectacular breakthrough -- three individual medals, including Billy Demong's gold, and a silver in the team event. Demong promptly announced he was committed to another four-year Olympic cycle, while his fellow veterans Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane elected to take a season-by-season approach.

It's tough to come up with an encore after last winter's performance. The team doesn't want to vanish from the winter sports map after planting its flag so emphatically, and various circumstances have contributed to a slow start on the World Cup circuit, but head coach Dave Jarrett said the plan going into 2010-11 has always been to gear everything toward the odd-year World Championships next February in Oslo.

Demong, 30, married former skeleton racer Katie Koczynski and remodeled his house from the ground up last summer. With Jarrett's blessing, he deliberately backed off his customary training regime in the offseason, although he did don his cyclist's helmet and logged three stage races including the Tour of Utah.

Somewhat predictably, Demong finished way out of the money in the season's first two World Cups in Finland and Norway and is back home in Park City, Utah, contemplating "a whole new set of rules to live by for this new goal," he said.

"I went over [to Europe] and got hosed ... but a little bit of struggling made me hungry," Demong said. "My mind is starting to put the puzzle back again, training-wise and life-wise, for what I need to do for Sochi [in 2014]."

He'll return to defend his 2009 world championship, but hasn't set his schedule between now and then yet.

Spillane, 30, who collected two individual silver medals in Vancouver, tore up a knee during Demong's wedding weekend jumping off 70-foot-high Pulpit Rock into the deepest part of Lake Placid and has been rehabbing after surgery to repair his ACL. Jarrett didn't begrudge the recreational leap -- "I've jumped off Pulpit Rock too, a lot of people have -- he just landed wrong," the coach said from Ramsau, Austria, site of this weekend's World Cup event. The good news on that front is Spillane has been medically cleared to begin ski jumping again and should be in shape to compete in Europe next month.

Lodwick, 34, will race in Ramsau. Meanwhile, Jarrett has focused his efforts on younger athletes like brothers Bryan and Taylor Fletcher (24 and 20, respectively), twins Brett and Eric Camerota (25) and World Cup rookies Brett Denney (20) and Nick Hendrickson (19). Both Taylor Fletcher and Brett Camerota were on the Olympic roster, and Camerota was part of the silver medal-winning quartet in the team event.

Nordic Combined skiers often mature slowly -- Lodwick is a notable exception on the U.S. team -- but Jarrett, a former national team member himself, said his developing talents have a big advantage now.

"All they've grown up knowing is [the team's] success at the very highest level," Jarrett said.

NEWS RESULTS FOR NORDIC COMBINED

  1. Three-time silver medalist Johnny Spillane retires

    Associated Press

    World champion Johnny Spillane, who won three silver medals in Nordic combined ski races at the Vancouver Olympics, is hanging up his skis nine months before the Sochi Games.

    Story | Conversation | April 23, 2013
  2. U.S. wins first-ever medal in Nordic combined

    Associated Press

    Olympic champion Jason Lamy Chappuis led France to victory in the Nordic combined team event at the world championships Sunday, and the United States took bronze for its first medal at worlds in the event.

    Story | Conversation | February 24, 2013
  3. U.S. takes first-ever cross country world championship gold medal

    Associated Press

    Kikkan Randall and Jessica Diggins gave the United States its first world championship gold medal in cross-country skiing Sunday by winning the women's team sprint by nearly eight seconds.

    Story | Conversation | February 24, 2013
  4. Mario Seidl takes lead in Nordic combined World Cup individual event

    Associated Press

    Austria's Mario Seidl took a strong lead for the cross-country round of the Nordic combined World Cup individual event after winning Saturday's ski jumping section.

    Story | Conversation | February 09, 2013
  5. One year from Sochi: A look at the venues

    ESPN.com news services, OLYMPICS

    While Sochi organizers have promised snow will be on the ground despite warn temps in the coastal town (on Thursday, it was 66 degrees there and 59 in...

    Story | February 07, 2013