Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday night assured Olympic inspectors that preparations for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi are on schedule, dpa reported. Putin told the International Olympic Committee coordination committee at the end of its two-day visit to the host city that all construction and financing plans will be met. The statement came after the IOC committee head Jean-Claude Killy had urged Russian organizers not to waste any time with what is seen as an ambitious project. "Time is not a luxury that we have to play with on this project," the Frenchman, who won three alpine ski gold medals at the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, warned. "The Sochi team must therefore ensure that it makes its decisions in a timely manner, so as to maintain its ambitious schedule." Sochi won the 2014 Games in an IOC election in 2007. The Black Sea resort must build venues and infrastructure from scratch in a massive scheme estimated at more than 10 billion dollars (7.4 billion euros). Putin led the Russian bid as the nation's president at the time and gave full financial assurances, but that was before the economic down-turn also reached Russia. On Thursday, Putin dined with the IOC team and, according to the ITAR Tass news agency, assured them that "we are getting this done."
