The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXII Olympic Winter Games, were a major international multi-sport event held in Sochi, Russia, in the tradition of the Winter Olympic Games.Sochi was selected as the host city in July 2007, during the 119th IOC Session held in Guatemala City. It is the first Olympics in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union was the host nation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.A total of 98 events in 15 winter sport disciplines were held during the Games. The 10 finalists, along with the results, were unveiled during live specials on Channel One. On 26 February 2011, the official mascots were unveiled, consisting of a polar bear, a snow hare, and a snow leopard.The opening ceremony took place on February 7, 2014. More than 3,000 people from artistic groups participated in dance, ballet, acrobatic and circus performances during the opening ceremony which was watched by a 40,000 strong audience at Sochi’s Fisht Olympic Stadium.Figure skater Irina Rodnina and ice hockey player Vladislav Tretiak lit the torcA record 88 nations qualified to compete, which beat the previous record of 82 set at the previous Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Seven nations—Dominica, Malta, Paraguay, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, and Zimbabwe—are making their Winter Olympics debut.98 events over 15 disciplines in 7 sports were included in the 2014 Winter Olympics. The three skating sports disciplines are figure skating, speed skating, and short track speed skating. There are six skiing sport disciplines—alpine, cross-country skiing, freestyle, Nordic combined, ski jumping and snowboarding. The two bobsleigh sports disciplines are bobsleigh and skeleton. The other four sports are biathlon, curling, ice hockey, and luge. A total of twelve new events are contested to make it the largest Winter Olympics to date.Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of medal events contested in each sports discipline.Alpine skiingBiathlonBobsleighCross-country skiingCurlingFigure skatingFreestyle skiingIce hockeyLugeNordic combinedShort track speed skatingSkeletonSki jumpingSnowboardingSpeed skatingThe closing ceremony was held on 23 February 2014 between 20:14 MSK and 22:25 MSK at the Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi. The ceremony was dedicated to Russian culture featuring world-renowned Russian stars like conductor and violinist Yuri Bashmet, conductor Valery Gergiev, pianist Denis Matsuev, singer Hibla Gerzmava and violinist Tatiana Samouil. These artists were joined by performers from the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters.Sochi’s medal design was unveiled in May 2013. The design is intended to resemble Sochi’s landscape, with a semi-translucent section containing a “patchwork quilt” of diamonds representing mountains; the diamonds themselves contain designs that reflect Russia’s regions. Those who won gold medals on 15 February received special medals with fragments of the Chelyabinsk meteor, marking the one-year anniversary of the event where pieces of the cosmic body fell into the Chebarkul Lake in the Ural Mountains in central Russia.