Follow us on:   

Olympic Games organisers in Russia stress security after Boston attack
April 17, 2013, 11:21 am

 A countdown clock to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Moscow, Russia. [Xinhua]

A countdown clock to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Moscow, Russia [Xinhua]

Winter Olympics Games Sochi 2014 organisers have issued unequivocal security assurances in the wake of the deadly Boston Marathon bombings, with the chief organiser promising the safest Games in history.

Russia is to beef up security in the Black Sea resort as of June 1 this year due to Monday’s terrorist attacks that killed three people and injured more than 170.

“Those who will be at the Olympic Games in Sochi should know this: We will provide them with security,” the CEO of the organising committee Dmitry Chernyshenko said on Wednesday.

“The security system for the Games was devised with the participation of leading international experts.

It conforms to the security demands of an event of this magnitude and has been repeatedly checked at test competitions and other events,” Chernyshenko said.

“Safety, safety and safety is our priority,” Alexander Polinsky, the head of the events department at the Moscow City Hall, said according to Interfax.

Yesterday Russian President Vladimir Putin offered assistance in the Boston bombing investigation into what he called a “barbaric crime”.

Putin said that only joint and coordinated actions against terrorists will yield results.

“Putin strongly condemned this barbarous crime and expressed his conviction that the fight against terrorism requires the active coordination of efforts by the global community,” the official statement said.

Thursday will see the first games in the under-18 world hockey championships, the first test event for the Bolshoi Ice Dome and Shayba Arena, another dry-run for security operations ahead of the Olympics.

“We’ll test this system yet again so that the Olympic Games in Sochi become the safest in history,” Chernyshenko said.

Olympic host city Sochi is on the other side of the Caucasus mountain range from the republic of Dagestan, the source of most large-scale terrorist activity in Russia over the last decade.

Russia is yet to uproot an entrenched Islamist insurgency in Dagestan and neighbouring republics that scattered around the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region after two separatist conflicts in Chechnya.

Source: Agencies